If you’re a music lover, then chances of you wanting to miss Fat Freddy’s Drop live are slim. The New Zealand-based seven-piece band are making their way to South Africa to perform at the Red Bull Music Academy Weekender that takes place in Joburg from September 1 to 4.They will also perform in Cape Town on September 2 in Woodstock, Cape Town.
Taking the form of the annual Red Bull Music Academy – which invites participants from all over the world to converge in a different city ever year – the Weekender will include performances in clubs and event spaces in Jozi as well as a lecture with Culoe de Song, a link up where producers will co-create a song as well as an art exhibition.
Some of the artists who will perform, or DJ, include Black Coffee, AKA, Christian Tiger School, Kid X, Kid Fonque, Kenzhero and Patoranking from Nigeria, among others. But the band most people are excited to see is Fat Freddy’s Drop. And the feeling seems mutual.I spoke to Scott Towers, the band’s saxophonist, who is quirkily known as “Chopper Reedz”, and he said: “It’s always exciting to go somewhere for the very first time and we’re lucky in that we get to do exactly that. It’s a bit overdue to come to Africa and South Africa. It’s a part of the world that we’re very interested in so it’ll be nice to make that connection as well.”
Seeing that they’ll be in town for a version of the academy, I ask him what he has learnt from his decades in the music industry. “Really, the number one lesson has always been to do something that you love to do rather than doing something because you think other people will love it,” he shares.
“If you stay with what really makes you happy, that will come through,” Reedz continues.
“It might not make you rich or incredibly popular or well-known or any of those things, but it will make what you do make a lot of sense to your ears and to your heart. That takes the pressure off expecting it to be financially successful or life-changing.”
Fat Freddy’s Drop are a dub and reggae band that have given us songs like Midnight Marauders, Shiverman and Ray Ray. But in the context of the dance-loving Mzansi, most South Africans know (and love) Jazzanova’s hit remix of their song, Flashback. So will Fat Freddy’s Drop treat fans to the house versions of their songs as well, or is it just easy skanking all the way through their set?“The shows we do in Europe are a lot of reggae festivals so we play a reggae set,” Reedz confesses.
“But we’ve also come up with some pretty fresh remixes of those classic tunes in our rehearsals in the past couple of months. It should be quite exciting and a good mix of old and new.”
Fat Freddy’s Drop have come a long way since their classic second album, Based on a True Story (2005) to their most recent album, Bays (2015). Reedz says the latter is “probably the most traditionally written album that we’ve done”. This means that unlike their other six albums, they didn’t tour the music before they recorded it.
Reedz, who joined the 17-year-old band in 2007, was a musician and worked in the App world before he joined the band. By the time he arrived, everyone who was in or had been in the band had a weird alias like “Jetlag Johnson” and “Hopepa” so I ask him, what’s the deal?
“It works because, first, we were basing the names on old jazz masters and that had a vibe to it and made sense because we didn’t really know what the band was,” Reedz explains.
“I’m the new guy in the band and quite often, people don’t know I’m in the band, they just know these names. That’s fun for us. We’re normal people. Fathers with kids and golf to play and fish to catch.”
The Red Bull Music Academy Weekender takes place at various venues in Joburg between September 1 and 4. Visit www.redbull.co.za for info.