South Africa’s premiere Hip-hop band Tumi and The Volume are pleased to announce a series of live dates nationwide in support of their third album Pick A Dream.
Every one of their preceding albums has been acknowledged for their overall contribution to not just Hip-hop made in South Africa but also the quality and attention to detail invested in each release. No different, Pick A Dream was nominated at the 2011 South African Music Awards in the Best Rap Album category, while the group itself received a nod for the Best Group.
“I guess we kind of want to feel like we never stopped playing in South Africa. It would also be great if we felt that people hadn’t stopped listening to us and even knew our new stuff,” anticipates TATV’s guitarist and producer Tiago Correia-Paulo ahead of their 5-date stint.
Fans will most likely welcome TATV’s latest live set – a hearty mix of their classics and the current material which includes the new radio favourite Asinamali. The album’s lead single brings in Zimbawean MC Zubz on the hook to ponder the attitudes to and politics of fame, money. High on concept, the black-and-white visuals inspired by Malian photographer Malick Sidibe match the song’s vintage texture. Asinamali is currently on high rotation within one week of premiering on MTV Base Africa. It is also gaining popularity on alternative pan African music station Channel O.
“Theirs is a tale of fierce determination complemented by sheer talent. They have done it all, from backpacking to galvanising world audiences…” the Mail & Guardian recently described TATV, and true to form, soon after serenading Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town audiences, the band will then jet off to their other musical home Paris for a few summer dates.
Soul singer Zaki Ibrahim who is featured on the album will provide tour support for Tumi and the Volume in Johannesburg and Pretoria
The following are Tumi and the Volume dates in South Africa this month:
15 June Johannesburg
16 June Johannesburg
17 June Durban
18 June Cape Town
The Johannesburg quartet Tumi And The Volume have quickly forged an identity as rising stars of new African music… Mondomix
Theirs is a tale of fierce determination complemented by sheer talent. They have done it all, from backpacking to galvanising world audiences… Mail and Guardian online
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: TUMI AND THE VOLUME PICK A DREAM (SAKIFO/SONY BMG SOUTH AFRICA)
It’s been a decade since the Jozi-based Tumi and the Volume, without the benefit of a local precedent, went about making a band. In an extended residency at the original Bassline in Melville, for which their 2003 SAMA-nominated debut album is named, they transitioned from spoken word experimentalists to being the only Hip-hop outfit of its kind as far as style and accomplishment in South Africa, and even beyond. A particularly impressive performance of theirs in Reunion Island where they were playing at the famed Sakifo Festival scored them an international record deal with the label born parallel to the festival, and home also to Finley Quaye and True Live. It suited TATV’s live instrumentation aesthetic - think Stetsasonic meets TV on the Radio but African – to the point where by the time their self-titled second album came out in 2006, as common practice they juggled a sort of dual musical citizenship between France and South Africa.
Pick A Dream the third album from TATV, now a European and North African festival staple band whom rapper Mos Def counts as a favourite, marks the first time they will see a major label release through Sony South Africa. It will also be the first time in years they will partake in a scene whose seed they helped sow, about which guitarist and producer Tiago Correia-Paulo says, ‘The scene is definitely much richer now than when I started making music here in South Africa. There’s also a greater will to be successful and excel with music. Both music extremes, pop and underground, are alive and well.’
For their part, TATV (comprised of lead MC Tumi Molekane, drummer Paulo Chibanga, guitarist Tiago Correia-Paulo and bassist Dave Bergman) have had ample opportunity to approach their own excellence as a group and with their extra-curricular ensembles. Tumi has built a formidable solo career highlighted by a performance with uber pop star Shakira at the FIFA World Cup opening concert and having both his albums My Good Eye (2008) and Whole Worlds (2010) SAMA-nominated. Chibanga with Correia-Paulo are steadily increasing the global footprint of their dub group 340ml having won 2 SAMAs (Best Alternative Album, Best Engineer) in 2009.With their shared range and calibre, creating album three for TATV was the easy part. This time around, attention to sonic detail was the utmost focus as Tiago explains, ‘The songs were written quite quickly. In recording them we really wanted to make sure we would end up with a very rich analogue sound.’ Literally going the distance they, along with French producer/engineers Laurent Dupuy and T ‘n T, laid down the album at Studio Py in Paris.
Subject matter-wise TATV never stray far from the place their story began. In the way that only Tumi can articulate whether rhyming, reciting poetry, or sing-rapping he challenges the way things are in South Africa compared to the way they used to be. “They celebrated their liberation with so much libation when the morning came, they had lost their heads…” is his sobering conclusion to the opening narrative La Tete Savante, which visually correlates with the album sleeve art designed by the French graphic artist Hippolyte. Asinamali, referencing a near-forgotten tradition of protest art brings in Zubz to ponder the attitudes to and politics of fame, money and all that comes with it. Limpopo is a serenade to life which dissolves into the sweetest guitar groove. It’s one of noticeably many sing-along melodies this album contains. Another would be the afro-beat inspired Volume Trials featuring Zaki Ibrahim.
Following a 6-week stint of promotional gigs in Europe, the lads finally bring the goods home with a national tour which promises to catapult them back into the consciousness of long standing fans and brand new supporters. Pick A Dream is comfortably varied and pitched above the genre’s generic standard, and is a powerful testimony of longevity especially in these fickle times which Tumi best describes: ‘I feel like we are in phase two of what happened early in 2000 with the explosion of local Hip-hop and youth culture with Bongo Maffin, Moodphase 5, Max Normal then, and now Blk Jks, Yesterday’s Pupil, Die Antwoord, Voodoo Child and others. We are still here.’
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