Radio Sechaba

Album review

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 /TiVo