In just one weekend, they had visited about half of the major clubs in Nairobi all in the wee hours of the night.
They arrived unannounced, set themselves up on stage, belted their hearts out for a paltry 10 minutes and their work was done.
They are party starters whose main aim is to set the mood and tone of the night into the nightlife.
They are not your ordinary band of men jumping up and down on stage trying to elicit reactions; they are a brass band, synced like a well-oiled engine and with the panache of Olympian Ballerinas.
They are the only of their kind across Sub-Saharan Africa and in this instance, they came with a saxophonist, a trombonist, a DJ, a trumpeter and two drummers, a team in their prime.
They are known as the Jägermeister Brass Cartel based from South Africa band and perform to elevate nightlife experiences around the world. This is their 3rd time to perform in Kenya. They speak to BDLife on their musical experience and their tour around Nairobi in the past weekend.
Their creation was a result of an elaborate intention to have a partying experience that is disruptive and one that can go into spaces and flip them into vibrancy.
“We consider ourselves as party starters and all-night performers; our work is to ignite the party, get the mood high and up and then leave,” says their spokesperson Masia Malusi Reginald.
They were formed about eight years ago by a lady called Biya who used to be the Marketing and Experiential head at Jägermeister.
“Germany used to have a band called the Brass Capella and she wanted to recreate that in South Africa. She took the concept of a very traditional oom-pah band and added a lot of abattoirs. There were very strong intentions to not just be a group that plays and is prim and proper but to be the kind of band that gets on tables, hype revellers and be as socially disruptive as possible,” he says.
From a brand perspective, they consider themselves as the future of nightlife, they see themselves as the disruptors of the norm, a modern twist of an oom-pah band but with more modern flavours, edgier, spicier, finer and more exciting.
Every single person in the band is a trained musician and a master of the art. Initially the band was 13-piece band composed of two players from each of the woodwind and the brass family but over time, they have managed to work with lesser numbers but maintain quality by switching their technique.
Part of their driving force is to make people to fall back into love with instruments considering that we live in the age of electronic music.
“We are a way of incorporating the old into the new but in a more fun way.”
They note that people because of their playing are getting to fall into love with brass instruments once again.
“If you look at Amapiano now which is the trending music of our home country, you are now finding them incorporate more brass and woodwind work in their compositions an example being Horns in the Sun which incorporates trumpets. You can easily say that brass instruments are easily getting into fashion.”
Their appeal comes from an energy and an abrasiveness that is very unapologetic and pleasing to their fans.
“Brass instruments are loud and proud. You cannot walk into spaces and play brass instruments and have people go about their business, the nature of the instruments demands attention and people love that. And so, having instruments that pull you out of your normal operating mode and getting you into a different space by something that is very loud and in your space is perhaps one of its appeal.”
In addition, they also have drums and an accompanying DJ which is a twist and fusion of a modern and traditional marching band that flavors their act.
They peg their rising popularity to the demand for real experiences.
“Live music is a real experience and people are craving for real, live and tangible experiences which is something that is exciting. Most of the times we have performed at festivals with bigger artists, people usually come to us and tell us that they enjoyed listening to us because it was a totally different experience to the monotony of everything else,” they say.
Their music they inform me, isn’t one dimensional in terms of genre, they play a very wide range which is why they have a range of medleys that are able to reach a wide audience and not just to one demographic or genre.
“Because our music is high energy in nature, we find sometimes most our audience leaning more towards the younger side but mostly the range of age demography for our fans is 18-45.”
When picking their music, they mostly go for iconic songs that cut across a wider range of audience. For newer songs, they try and pick those that will not be just one hit wonders but mostly songs that have legs on them and can carry themselves through time.
On what influences their creation, they note that their songs are crafted for everyone to enjoy. Mostly they try to look for songs that are timeless and appeal to a wide range of an audience so that they are not leaving anyone behind.
Kenya is exciting for them and they describe Nairobi as having welcoming people, some really good food and beautiful energy and a hustling vibe which is beautiful to experience.
From their Kenyan performance, they note that the dance and language were a major hit for them.
“Kenya has some amazing dance moves and energy, Kenyan performances leave you with the experience that people are actually having fun and are not being pretentious in any way, when you get such an energy from an audience, it is easy to resonate and give it back in your performance. Swahili is also beautiful language that speaks to the heart”
Whereas there are no Kenyan artists incorporated in their medleys, there are plans for that in the future tours to the country.
For their performance in Kenya, bar their performance connecting with people has been the most important part of their tour.
“Song choices and repertoires are only an aspect of the act and sometimes one doesn’t even remember what song they were performing, but you remember the crowd reaction to your songs and for us, Nairobi has been magical.”
How do they capture a global audience?
“You can always look at an audience and notice its difference, however there are things that are shared like the love for music, love for togetherness love for vibes, at the end of the day you have to look at these things as a shared goal and tap into this goal and provide people with good experiences. It also boils back to audiences being willing to listen to what we do because if they don’t, then we would be non-existent. The fact that we can get into people’s spaces and be very loud and intrusive and people just getting along with it is beautiful.”
For them, what makes the Kenyan crowd stand out in comparison to her African counterparts is that she likes to party very late. The only near comparison to Nairobi would be Berlin which they say is also a very late city.
As they depart from Kenya to South Africa, the band promises on their return to deliver unforgettable, high-energy experiences that leave audiences buzzing long after the music ends.
