E-Paper
S African Indian band stirs up East-West rhythms
East-West music by South African Indian band Maverix, founded two decades ago as an apartheid-era struggle group.
Global wars, poverty, prisoners... all this is blended into its East-West music by South African Indian band Maverix, founded two decades ago as an apartheid-era struggle group.
The Johannesburg-based group was started by Jeremy Karodia and Ayub Mayet and its five members today could be classed almost as renegades in the kind of unconventional music they play and songs they write.
"Ayub and I started Maverix when we were still political activists writing for rallies and getting involved in a lot of cultural events," reminisced Karodia, a music teacher for the past 25 years.
"About two years ago we got together again and decided to record an album. Apartheid was gone, but there were other issues that had come up since 1994 - global wars, poverty, disease and some positive things in some countries as well and we decided to write about that."
The band combines Eastern and Western music with English lyrics that still reflect its foundations in the apartheid era.
The new members of Maverix are Shahzaadee, Karodia's daughter, an anthropology student who has been playing the violin since primary school; Reshma Lalla who is completely self-taught on the delicately delightful on the santoor; and brothers Ketan and Vivek Parshotam, who alternate on the tablas.
Commenting on the inclusion of the younger musicians, Karodia said he and Mayet felt they needed to create opportunities for them with classical instruments used in the East and the West.
"We are trying to tap into their talent with our individual style of music, which they have blended in with very well."
The album is titled "Guantanamo Bay", with a song of the same name dedicated to those in the US-controlled Cuban prison used as a controversial detention centre for prisoners of the Afghanistan war.
Other songs deal with the Palestinian situation; children, women and drug abuse; while one is a song thanking Africa for freedom.
"We are totally independent; funding the limited copies of the CD ourselves," Karodia said.
