Radio Sechaba is the seventh album and
Brownswood debut from South African singer, composer, pianist, and producer
Bokani Dyer. Though well-known at home, most listeners encountered his music with "Ke Nako," the opening cut from
Indaba Is,
Brownswood's excellent 2022 overview of South Africa's music scene.
Radio Sechaba ("sechaba" translates as "nation") weaves together virtually all of
Dyer's influences: post-bop and funky jazz, gospel, township jive and jazz, funk, Latin, and soul. It was recorded at the family's Dyertribe studio in Johannesburg with a cast that included his father, saxophonist
Steve Dyer. The younger
Dyer produced, recorded, and mixed the album with
Tashepo Mothwa.
Radio Sechaba reveals how encyclopedic
Dyer's knowledge of African jazz, funk, soul, and R&B is, and how these sounds intersect with other traditions.
Dyer's songs directly address nation building, community, accountability, the demand for self-determination and freedom, both individual and collective.
The opening duet number, "Be Where You Are," is a ballad with layered vocal harmonies swooping and cascading across a minimal melody and colorful guitar vamps from
Aldert Du Toit. It almost floats. "Mogaetsho" is built on a funky but foreboding bassline from
Tendai Shoko.
Dyer's Afro-Latin-tinged electric piano chords frame vamping guitars and layered trumpets.
Dyer stacks his vocals and offers them in contrasting styles: chants, syncopated jazz, and call-and-response. Where "Mogaetsho" wed funk and Afro-Latin grooves, "Move On" directly engages Nigerian Afrobeat to frame his sophisticated soul singing. The interplay between
Tinotenda Dambaneunga's drums,
Shoko's roiling electric bass, and
Dyer's keys is canny.
Keenan Ahrends' guitar and
Sthembiso's trumpet add color and depth to the sultry, affirmative melody. American rapper
Damani Nkosi assists on the strident nocturnal manifesto "State of the Nation," with gorgeous modal dialogue between saxophonist
Linda Sikhakhane and the bandleader. Gaborone's jazz-funk heroes
Sereetsi & the Natives back
Dyer on the bubbling Afro-soul in single "Ke Nako." The interplay between the leader's electric piano, hand percussion, and
Sereetsi's bumping electric guitar is infectious. All-star bassist
Ikechi Amaeshi guests on "Spirit People," a silvery, warm, jazz-funk groover with the entire band chanting behind. "Victims of Circumstance" is killer modal soul-jazz. Playing piano,
Dyer's sumptuous lead vocals are appended by backing vocal support from
Keorapetse Kolwane.
Sikhakhane's solo is knotty, lean, and true. "Amelogang" is another vocal number where
Dyer fronts a quintet playing a swinging melody atop syncopated rhythms and symbiotic exchanges between saxophonists
Steve Dyer and
Mthunzi Mvubu (whose
1st Gospel debut album was released on the same day as
Radio Sechaba). The roiling dubwise Afrobeat in "Resonance of Truth" is an anthem of self-determination as
Dyer's grainy tenor vocals recall a young
Bob Marley's. Closer "Medu" is an instrumental;
Dyer composed it but does not appear. With his dad and
Sikhakhane on saxes, special guest
Sthembiso Bhengu on trumpet, and
Amaeshi on bass, it perfectly melds historic township jazz, South African gospel, and New Orleans street band music.
Radio Sechaba offers
Dyer's sophisticated yet always welcoming musical evolution, with kaleidoscopic vision and authoritative achievement. ~ Thom Jurek
