Beginning with an Afrobeat stomp, Tidal Waves’ fifth album, Manifesto, is a powerhouse album from South Africa’s finest reggae band.
Happy Man, the opening song, is such a bolt of sunshine that it can’t help but win you over with its cheery disposition and lush horns.
No surprise, really, that Tidal Waves have been strutting their stuff for a while — 13 years to be precise. The hardest-working band in South Africa, some people call them.
They’ve been on labels and then off labels, and now they have released their new album independently.
“Our freedom is the best thing,” says drummer Sam “Drumbo Shoai. Guitarist Jaco Mans nods his head in agreement.
“With a record label you are going to get screwed. It’s just a matter of who is going to screw you,” says Mans. “You look for the best deal, but you will get screwed.”
“We were with a record label, Sheer, that messed us up,” says lead singer Jacob “Boogie Zakes” Wulana. “But we have pulled out now and with our fifth album we have gone independent again.”
A previous record deal with Sony also went south and the band was eventually dropped, even though Sony retained the copyright to their first album, 1999’s Hard Work.
This created problems for the band when fans wanted copies of Hard Work, but it was out of print and the label refused to press more copies.
“That was a very good album. It was a shame we were working with people who did not believe in our music,” says Shoai.
“People are still interested in the music.
“At the gigs they ask where they can get our first album, but they can’t because we don’t have copies.”
This stand-off resulted in Tidal Waves going back into studio in 2007 to re-record several of the songs from their first album along with some new material. The result was Afrika.
But Wulana says the band felt they had to record a full new album too, so in 2009 they headed into Wolmer Studios to record their fifth album, Manifesto, arguably their best yet.
The stand-out track, Mo’Faya, is sure to be the soundtrack to many a 2010 World Cup memory with its vuvuzela riffage and its Harariesque chorus.
“Original music for original people” is the band’s manifesto, and they shout it out wherever they go.
Embracing the genres of mbaqanga, maskandi, rock, pop, dub and roots reggae, their sound is deeply South African and at the same time has an appeal for interÂnational markets too, as seen by their annual tours on the European festival circuit. Tidal Waves are also big with the Afrikaans rock crowd, with songs such as Lekker Lekker Dans being firm crowd favourites at Oppikoppi.
“The Afrikaans scene has a lot of cool bands and it is important to be involved in that scene,” says Mans.
New offerings from Manifesto, such as Vastrap and Alles Is Bevok, are sure to join the ranks of the crowd favourites.
“Vastrap is about unity,” says Wulana. “Black and white need to come together so we can make things right.”
Politics is a regular feature of Tidal Waves’ music. As Wulana says: “When you listen to Tidal Waves you will hear about the issues we are unhappy about.”
The band’s most overtly political song on Manifesto is titled War in a Government Yard and it satirises the infighting in the ANC-led alliance.
“As South Africans we are not happy with the way the politicians are behaving and we need to put that out there,” says Wulana.