Still Love Bob Marley Songs / And Drivin’ Hookers Crazy

Stark post-coloniality awaited in Malindi, courtesy of Scorpio Villas. 3 day break from substantial Kiswahili study, Waswahili practice. Palace-sized beds, cushions, mattresses, pillows delicately situated along mazes of hardwood floors and outdoor paths. Acres of mostly vacant villas scattered between palm trees and Jurassic-looking foliage. Africans serve red and white South African wine, spiked mango juice. Clean pulls of pulp-filled passionfruit juice complimented the already complementary. With Kenyan currency falling, the walimu (teachers) with Yale’s purchasing power are becoming more and more able to taste and share fruits of the rich.
To think of the living arrangements in Scorpio is to feel strangely uncomfortable. Noting like an unexpected onslaught of paid-for material luxuries to conjure American guilt, I guess. A reticence to indulge causes a motion deriving from aversion to the simplistic historical? Black Africans handing towels and bowing to White Sunbathers, the ratio of hotel workers exceeding that of occupants, women digging and carrying mud in view of my yoga poses. Rampant injustice? Such hotels are seen to offer primo jobs, and this one left no chore left understaffed, no tourist grievance left un-placated.
But it’ll eat ya souul? Tosha…time to dispense with apologies for narcissism, the unbridled self-reflexivity of predictable generalization. Rock and roll happened here.

As is custom in wealthy establishments across the world, Scorpio hired four musicians to entertain lucrative guests and assuage the ears of business owners by way of covering U.S.-England pop hits. As is typical, and enduringly bizarre, of East Africans’ preferences: Dire Straights “Walk of Life,” (I have heard this one played really, really late at clubs in Kenya) Cher “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” (A far cry from its recent House-techno incantations) “It’s Too Late to Apologize,” (They sung it at Kampala National Theatre, Reggae Monday, audience knew every word) “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” (The Portland Timbers supporter in me stood proud for this one).
The audience was four smartly dressed, beer sipping, young Kenyan women. If only it were more like a scene from an African-styled sequel to “Almost Famous,” and the girls sat to date/adore the band members. They began to study the floor harder as I found a slouchy, two-step off the 4/4 time. The vocalist sang the lowest notes he know how, letting his posture and sound shrink before wandering keys, droopy bass, relentlessly steady, flairless drums. Singing with a politeness that reflected the demure disposition of the other working men and women in the vicinity, the singer succeeded in blending in, refusing to draw attention to the music. He could not be celebrated, nor condemned. Only an attentive deciphering of his mumbled, accented lyrics could interpret origins of his covers.
After some other students trickled into the scene, Drummer asked if we were ready for reggae. We were. The exchange altered the band. Before, it had revealed its compositional competence, but concealed any performative countenance. But then the vocalist jumped an octave, exuding a passion that follows confidence. Postures perked all across the room, “singin don’t worry / bout a thing / cuz every little thing / gonna be all right. Suddenly, the singer was Pete Tosh, aided by The Congos on harmony. “Three Little Birds” turned to “One Love,” “Waiting in Vain,” and “Red Red Wine.”
Afterward, old man drummer said to me, “you sing us a song tomorrow…rock? Blues? But not reggae?” Apparently, he was not listening to what I kept saying over and over: “Night Nurse.” Initially, I wanted to hear the band play that Gregory Isaacs classic, which I thought could serve as some sort of salute to the local women in attendance. Finally, after the fifth time I said it, the singer sang the chorus to the drummer to let him know what I meant. They smiled. “Tomorrow, you sing with us Night Nurse.”
The next night, Saturday, the band played for a larger audience of working girls and tourists. Alternating between the pop covers were 9-14 minutes of African instrumental jams. I recall a reluctance to go up and ask them to stop their set for me. Making them stop and mess up their show for an mzungu to be into himself seemed, again, to be strange, uncomfortable; conjured a guilt that comes with relative affluence. But the African student on my program, Shani, was encouraging, predicting that the band would love an excuse to disrupt the ordinary. I walked up to the band after a number was winding down, barefoot, with kikoy and soccer jersey, and told them I’d been practicing “Night Nurse” that afternoon. They hadn’t, but told me to sing a note into the mic and then started an awesome reggae grove. The keyboardist listened to a few verses, the chorus, and proceeded to kill the song. We ran through it two or three times, altering solos, exchanging stupidly immodest grins. Nearly all of the students, my teacher, the drink servers, towel holders, and sex workers came over and hooted it up.
My memory of what happened next is certainly distorted, I recall the following theater…
As our Night Nurse faded into its last “only you only alone can quench dis here thirst,” Drummer grabbed me, and asked, “what next?”
Me: “I shot the sheriff?”
Him: “Okay, we don’t know but we will just play”
Me “I shot the sherri-ff” (into the mic, loudly)
Keyboard: (chords that perfectly corresponded to that salvo)
Me and band: rest of the song.
Drummer: “Now ‘No women no cry’”
[mid-way through song, the prostitutes got up, including a singer with a beautiful voice, someone who society should never allow to be prostitute] Her and I: “everything is gonna be all right / everything is gonna be alright”
Me: “what about redemption song?”
Keyboardist: “I play the guitar, we do a duet solo”
Drummer: [yelling] “Yes, Yes, Feel the Love, Reggae Music”
Dozen or so of the students and hotel workers, together, the intoxicated coming in with echoed harmonics a half verse behind: “Ole pirates yes dem rob I / sold I to thee mercant sheeps…