The Fragile: Reggae Bump

The more regular visitors among you might have noticed less frequent posts lately. Not to worry, we still have plenty of out of print and deleted material that we would like to document and share by means of this blog. It is just that all four of us have recently found our "other" lives demanding lots of our time.

While the recording shared today is well worth a listen, this post also addresses an oppressive issue that many South African musicians in the 60s and 70s were faced with - feeling forced to "allow" producers to claim they wrote songs that were actually written by band members. Some say similar dynamics still happen with the DJs and producers of today?

Not only did producers active during the 1960s to the 1980s falsely claim compositions in their own name, these producers then registered copyright and pocketed all subsequent composer royalties. In the sound-clip below you can hear Johnny Sello Mothopeng of Batsumi telling it like it is .... "David Thekwane, Hamilton Nzimande, West Nkosi, Strike Vilakazi, Rupert Bopape, they all stole songs". This sound-clip was recorded when I visited Johnny Mothopeng in Johannesburg earlier this year, and is shared with his permission.

Back to the music shared here. As a producer for the small independent record label "Meritone". Naftali Dali is credited with writing these three chilled out South African "Manenburg-inspired" 70s bump-style tunes. These particular tunes have a little extra with an mbaqanga and blues influence.

It is again a pity that the session musicians gathered for this recording are not credited - they are pretty good. I particularly like the tone and approach of the saxophonist, the solo runs providing ample evidence of this likely being a well known musician moonlighting for an extra flat fee payment. 

  A quick search of my digitised records shows that Naftali Dali is credited with more than fifty tracks in the 1960s and 1970s, often associated with the Meritone label, On 78rpm he features for "Hi-Fi Big Beat". Dali dabbled in soul, bump and mbqanga. He is credited with writing many tracks for "Dudu and the Bigtime Boys". "The Moonlight Expressions" and even had a band, "Dali's Beauty Queens". I have no evidence to suggest that Naftali Dali was among those producers who "stole" songs.

Download link here