Award winning South African music sensations, Mi Casa, have just released their latest album. However beneath the surface of a beautifully packaged album, lies an ugly truth.
The band, who have been together for five years, almost called it quits and were determined to go their separate ways. It all started five months ago when band members J’Something, Dr Duda and Mo-T just could not see eye to eye anymore.
Vocalist J’Something said that it was not just one fight that caused the rift, but years of sweeping issues under the carpet.
“You know when we first came together as a group, people often told us that we were not going to be together forever, they were very clear about that. And we thought they were right when we started having problems. It was not one specific thing, it was a lot of problems that built up over the years,” he said.
“We have been together for five years and often we would just deal with things quickly and forget it.
Then we started bringing up all of those problems and throwing it at each other and eventually the frustrations were so bad that we decided to have a meeting and we had every intention of calling it quits. Leading up this that I was also throwing myself at my cooking career and gigs were not coming through as they usually did, there was no commitment from any of us anymore, ” he said.
Micasa. Picture:Twitter
However when they did meet, J’Something said that their emotions brought them back together.
“For some reason when we met, our emotions brought out a new love and respect for each other. We were all just really honest with each other and were able to move on. We consider ourselves a regular family, we fight, we don’t want to be around each other but then we make up and move on. That’s what real families go through,” he said.
The group were so inspired by their near split that they decided to go into studio and record their fourth album, which they have aptly called Familia.
“We did this album because we wanted to express where we are. We are happy, we are a family and we have learnt a lot of lessons but we are strong together,” J’Something said.
He went on to describe the album to the first few months of a new relationship.
“It’s such a happy album, it’s like being in love for the first time, it’s got that amazing feeling. We really looked at our heritage for inspiration, so there are sounds from Portugal to Africa and even Brazil. We also went back to the sound of our first album, but even though we did that, this album is very different to our previous albums, in fact this one is our best one yet.”
Micasa. Picture: Twitter
What’s unique about Familia, is Mi Casa’s decision to have no featured artists on any of the eight songs. “It was a conscious decision to make this album focus on us. It’s all about us, it's about our emotions and our story and communicating that story to our fans, and only we can do that,” he said.
They also have other music coming out this year, which includes a song with Nigerian singer, Wizkid. “For the last two years the rest of the continent has been our focus and that was based purely on our growth as a brand. We have played in more than 31 African countries and it’s the trio will also be busy with a number of international gigs.
Familia is out in stores and is available in iTunes. been great, we have made music with some of the biggest stars on the continent and we have made some great connections as well, so we will always make music with the rest of Africa,” he said