Mo Kolours, a half-Mauritian percussionist and producer released his debut project EP1: Drum Talking on One Handed Music last month. For the project, an organic mix of subtle rhythms and melodies, Mo quietly opens up a dusty musical vault of influences that have never had the chance to mix and mingle with each other before. In Mo’s words, “I’m a percussionist, vocalist, kinda wanna-be producer, and bit of a music fiend based in London. I’ve been making music for years now trying to find a sound, find my way. I’ve got a bit of a mixed background. I’ve lived all over the UK. That comes as a little mixed bag, a little mixed package.” Echoes of the Sega Music of Mo Kolour’s Mauritian heritage, the talking drum of Sunny Ade, and the driving beat of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen can be heard in the record’s gentle drum thumping and poly-rhythmic pulse.
Here at the Revivalist, we were intrigued by the project and wanted to learn more about Mo Kolours, his creative process, and where his influences stem from and how they have shaped his musical perspective. To take it one step further, we asked Mo if he could make a mix for us, sharing his influences with a special focus on music of the African diaspora, our focus this issue, and Sega music. Mo was kind enough to do so and we couldn’t be more excited. Listen while you read!
Exclusive Mo Kolours Revivalist Mix:
“This mix has some of what I’ve talked about on it. All the musicians we talk about. For me, American jazz was very influenced by African music, and then later African music was influenced by American stuff. It’s been a back and forth thing going on, a bit of a game of tennis with music and Africa and African-Americans for a while. On the mix, I’m hinting at that a little bit- the American influence and American-Afro jazz.” – Mo Kolours
If you haven’t yet, grab a copy of Mo Kolour’s EP1: Drum Talking here.
How did you first start getting into making music?
I’m a bit of a music lover. I used to listen to lots and try and get new stuff every week and just the next step was like alright, well I’m going to try and do some stuff as well. Why not, eh? I was doing some artwork, studying in art college and decided to start trying to make music as part of my art and that led me to carry on with music and it’s cool.
There is something that feels really natural and organic about your music, so naturally I was drawn to how you came up with some of the songs. I would love if you could take us on a musical journey for “Bakiraq” and how that track came to be.
To be honest, I don’t really plan stuff. What I’ll do is make a load of beats, playing around with percussion and bits of song chords here and then, and then I’ll go through those quite quickly. I have a short tolerance so I’ll make one then go on to the next one, on to the next one. Then I’ll come back through a heap of stuff and I’ll think about which one could use a vocal, which ones doesn’t need it and what not and that was one I just picked out that felt right. I mean, I just make loads so it’s hard to keep track of exactly what I was up to and how I felt that day. Alex particularly liked that one, Alex from One Handed, it was quite short in the beginning, maybe a minute long, like only a bit of a taste. Alex was like “Can you make it a little bit longer to give it a bit more impact?” I thought that was a good idea and kinda really re-worked it a little bit. So it’s been through a couple of little processes.
What does the title of “Bakiraq” mean?
I’m afraid it’s not much, it’s just a funny name I just thought up. It’s kind of playing on Burt Bacharach and Iraq and the spellings of them. I like to make people think a bit and put their own meanings into stuff. It’s nice when people pick up on little things but I’m afraid there’s no massive story behind them. I like to be quite spontaneous from day to day, doing what I feel, recording as much as I can whether it’s crap or not. I think recording is the key to things. You can sit down and play guitar for a few hours and come up with some great stuff , but then if you’re not recording it, what’s the likelihood of you necessarily remembering those things. I just record everything.
It’s just you in the whole process, a one man show for everything?
Yeah, until we get to the mastering level. I have a guy who helps me mix it a little bit, I’m a bit of an amateur when it comes to that stuff. I mean, it’s a bit of a self-indulgent journey.
No! It’s a beautiful journey. How did you link up with One Handed Music? The label seems to work with a lot of interesting projects . Do they have a certain philosophy behind what they are doing that drives the label?
It’s weird. Paul White, he’s a friend of mine before he got signed . We were just friends through music – hanging out and listening to records and stuff. He was making stuff. I was making stuff and he got to know this guy Alex. Alex was working for Stones Throw and because of Paul pretty much he was like wow, this is amazing. Let’s start some stuff up. It’s taken a bit of time and courage for me to get my stuff together. It’s really just an old relationship with those guys. I’m lucky. Alex is a great guy and so is Paul.
I was reading on Ekta’s website, the guy who did your album cover, that he’s done some projects in the past where a certain piece of music has inspired him to create a piece of artwork. I’m constantly intrigued by the relationship between the arts and how music can affect painting, how painting affects dancing, on and on.
I had a vision for what I wanted for the CD cover. It was this ambiguous kind of figurative representation of something or somebody that you couldn’t necessarily view as a definite person. I just had that in my mind. I paint anyways so I kinda had an idea of what I wanted and then Alex showed me this guy and I was just blown away. It was too perfect. It was beyond what I had imagined. So it just seemed to fit straightway. It was one of those things where I saw it and it was like, yup, lets do that. Lets get him involved.
So that magically worked out. That’s pretty cool. Where did the name Mo Kolours come from?
I had been playing around with names for a while and wondering, and that one just sprung into my head. This represents more. You could look into it in lots of ways. It could mean more colors, as in literal colors. Or it could mean people of the world. I consider myself not of one ethnic background so, the fact that people would like to just group up ethnic groups and religions. For me there’s a lot of grey area in that, and I’m evidence of that myself.
It definitely comes out in your music. It’s not quite like anything else, at least that I’m familiar with music-wise. I wanted to hear how you got turned on to some of the musicians who have influenced you, especially African jazz and Afrobeat influences to tie in with our issue. Are there specific ways they shifted your musical perspective?
Fela Kuti. Tony Allen. Francis Bebey. Sunny Ade. These people influence all I’ve thought about music.
Fela Kuti
When I first heard Fela’s stuff there was just a rawness and a power and not necessarily an emphasis put on musical technicalities. It was more to do with feeling and emotion, and the simplicity that can be put across through music.
Tony Allen
As a percussionist, Tony Allen’s intricacies and simplicity in time is another thing I’m really massive on, that contradiction. Simple as well as complicated is a good term.
Francis Bebey
My brother introduced me to him. He’s a Cameroonian artist and he traveled to Haiti. He worked with schools there and tutored about an African perspective on music. There’s this album he’s done called New Track. I’ve been listening to it for a couple years. That’s another one with a perfect marriage of true African value behind rhythm, and then electric fringes of using electric keyboards and a bit of kind of weirdness. It’s a great marriage, which really inspired me. I’m trying to use keyboard and drum machines, as well as live instruments. New Track, in particular, is brillant.
Sunny Ade
He’s a Nigerian kind of legend, of juju music. Juju music uses that talking drum quite a lot which is something that I’ve loved for a while. And his music introduced me to that instrument so . And also he’s another person that fuses traditional juju rhythms with a kind of jazz aesthethic. It’s amazing. He’s massive in the way I think about the music.
Could you talk a little bit about about the Sega music of Mauritius? Can you talk about some of the basic elements of it?
My Dad’s from Mauritian, Creole Mauritian. It’s a Creole, Indian Ocean thing- Mauritian and the surrounding islands Rodrigues and Reunion and right up to Seychelles. I mean, it’s a powerful thing for me as a child hearing it, like weird old tapes and stuff and my Dad singing the rhythms and talking about it saying “This is music from where I’m from and it goes like this.” And I’d just be like wow, what is this crazy stuff. Then going out there as a child and hearing it. It’s kind of a tourist thing out there. They use it to sell Mauritian culture but you can feel it. On the beach at night people will just spontaneously light a fire and start playing drums and shakers. They use a triangle a lot. They use this huge kind of drum called a maravanne and they heat it on the fire. Just seeing that, the rawness and the fun, the spirit coming out of it. It’s an amazing culture. Then, growing up a little bit and getting more into music I started to think about that more. I visited Mauritus again and kinda tried to find some music and realized how people were neglecting Sega out there. To people in my family I would say, “ Have you gotten any Sega recordings?” And they would be like, “No, why would you listen to that? We’ve got some Bob Marley.” So I ended up really getting quite into it recently in the last few years. I’ve got some few records and recordings. It’s great.
Are there any specific records that you could recommend?
There’s a great artist who’s sadly passed away but he’s like a Sega legend called Ti Frère. He’s one of the first people in Mauritius anyway, to make songs out of it. It’s like a free thing where you just do what you want . He created some songs and recorded them as an album called Homage a Ti Frère. There’s another thing called Illen Peters. He’s a great one you should check out. He fuses jazz with it in the Reunion islands.
Interview and Words by Nora Ritchie
