Werrason came, saw and left us homework. Who will do it?

DAR ES SALAAM: I CONFESS I have a soft spot for a Saturday night in a muziki wa dansi hall. The nyama choma smoke, the bassist who has not slept since Independence, the MC greeting every uncle by name. I have loved it all for decades. When Werrason came to Dar es Salaam, he gave us a good night out.

He also left our musicians enough homework to keep them busy until Christmas. He came to sing and dance, not to mark exam papers. But first, a word about the teacher.

He was born Noël Ngiama Makanda on Christmas Day 1965 in Kikwit, then in Bandundu Province, which explains the Noël.

Fans call him Roi de la Forêt, King of the Forest, a title that grew out of Tarzan, the nickname he earned as a young man after winning a martial arts competition.

In 1981, he and some school friends, Didier Masela among them, founded Wenge Musica in Kinshasa. JB Mpiana soon joined and later led the band.

Werrason gave them “Kin É Bougé”, sung with Mpiana and the monster hit “Kala-Yi-Boeing”, the title track of the 1993 album.

Then Mpiana released a solo album, Feux de l’amour and relations soured. A quarrel spilled onto the stage at Kinshasa’s InterContinental and on 7 December 1997 the band split.

Mpiana took most of the musicians and formed Wenge BCBG, from the French “bon chic, bon genre”, Parisian shorthand for the smart set. Two weeks later, Werrason, Masela and Adolphe Dominguez launched Wenge Musica Maison Mère. Maison mère means “mother house”.

The name made its own claim. On 16 September 2000, Werrason and Maison Mère sold out the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. He was only the second African musician to fill it.

A veteran Tanzanian musician watched the televised show with his eyes fixed on what was happening behind the lead singer. I will keep his name to myself, but his verdict deserves a wider audience.

“Werrason’s show was a school. But it became a school for Tanzanians because of our own negligence.”

Ouch! His point was simple. Werrason’s band did nothing supernatural. Our guitarists can play, our vocalists can sing and our dancers can make their shadows sweat.

What the Congolese had, he said, and what we too often lack, is discipline and the habit of moving as one team. You have probably seen the scene to know what he meant.

The lead singer pours out his heart to a woman who packed her suitcase and left in the second verse. Behind him, two musicians are deep in a private conversation, possibly about who owes whom 5,000 shillings.

Up front, one dancer faces east, another west and a third seems to be dancing at a different concert, perhaps in Morogoro. The crowd laughs and keeps dancing. Tanzanians are a forgiving audience.

But a stage is not a village meeting where everyone speaks whenever the spirit moves them. On Werrason’s stage, the musicians read their leader’s signals and moved together.

When the choreography said right, nobody decided left was the more democratic option. When the rhythm changed, they changed with it. A solo might make Franco Luambo smile in his grave, but played at the wrong moment, it still wrecks the arrangement. Many bands rehearse until everyone knows the songs, then go home.

Knowing a song and presenting it are different jobs. Rehearsal should also cover entrances, exits, transitions, choreography, microphone handling and where everyone stands.

Here is an idea that costs almost nothing. Once a week, play the full set without stopping, as if for a paying crowd. Film it on a phone and watch it together afterwards.

Did the bassist come in late? Did the singer spend seven minutes introducing a four-minute song? Some of our musicians introduce songs like a best man at a wedding, long and tearful, with greetings to relatives in Tabora.

Settle disagreements in the rehearsal room. The stage is no place for an emergency parliamentary debate about who plays what. Now for the part that may stick in the throat, though I say it with love.

Too many of our bands have made peace with a certain kind of venue. You know it: a bar on the edge of town with “Kingilio: Bia” on the poster. Buy a beer and you are in.

The band plays from nine until the generator gives up, the owner pays when he feels like it and the musicians go home believing they have arrived. They have. At the bar.

The trouble starts when a regular slot in Sinza or Mbagala becomes the ceiling of a band’s imagination. Why should Tanzanian bands not play Kinshasa, Nairobi, Johannesburg or Paris?

Why must the Congolese always be the visiting professors while we stay permanent students? Promoters will not fly a band to Paris on the strength of a WhatsApp voice note.

They want properly recorded performances, a clear technical rider, reliable management and a well-filmed 45-minute showcase. That one video could open more doors than ten years of complaining on Instagram.

A band that arrives late, argues onstage and forgets its arrangements will keep being paid in beer. If you want to be taken seriously, be serious first. For CHAMUDATA, the Tanzania Association of Dansi Music Bands, this debate could be a gift rather than a grievance. Nobody is saying Tanzania lacks talent.

DDC Mlimani Park Orchestra, Msondo Ngoma, Orchestra Maquis Original, Vijana Jazz and Tabora Jazz settled that question long ago. But no football club wins next Saturday’s match by hanging photographs of its 1985 championship trophies in the dressing room.

Which brings me to CHAMUDATA, the Tanzania Association of Dansi Music Bands. I hate to say it, but these days the association seems to exist only for a general meeting and an election, every three years and little else.

The old CHAMUDATA organised competitions and even held an awards night. The last three or four leaderships have made the news mostly after elections.

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What is the problem? A lack of creativity? No incentives? Or have we started mistaking a courtesy call on some band, photographed for Instagram, for actual work? Come on, CHAMUDATA. You can do better! Bring back the band competition and the awards night, so musicians have something to rehearse for besides Saturday at the bar.

Run workshops where bands play short sets for seasoned musicians, producers and stage directors who can spot the weak points. The aim is to fix them, not to humiliate anyone. Discipline also has to run upwards. Musicians deserve to be paid on time and to play on decent equipment.

A promoter who pays three weeks late cannot demand the precision of a Swiss watch. Band owners should invest in instruments and fair contracts and sponsors should reward quality over noise.

For the music, the joy and the free lesson, Werrason deserves a heartfelt asante sana, matondo mingi, merci beaucoup. The best tribute our musicians can pay him is to return to the stage with better shows and our own dansi spirit intact. We can learn from our Congolese brothers without becoming their echo.

And should JB Mpiana and Wenge BCBG come next, bring dancing shoes and a notebook, too. One day I would like to see Werrason, Fally Ipupa or Koffi Olomidé leave Dar es Salaam having learnt something from our bands.

But first, put down the phones, stop arguing over who is the neighbourhood’s greatest musician and turn up for rehearsal on time. Our muziki wa dansi will win back its name on stage, one tight set at a time, in halls where people pay for the music and the beer is extra. Wikiendi njema.