Skip&Die predict a riot

(© Laura Andalou)

A distinctive blend of cumbia, dubstep, dancehall, hip hop, tropical bass, Balkan, and African rhythms has made Skip&Die the prototype of world music in the 21^st century. The South African-Dutch band’s debut album, Riots in the Jungle, effortlessly combines commitment with revelry.

Skip&Die came into being in Amsterdam after the South African singer and visual artist Catarina Aimée Dahms (aka Cata.Pirata) met the Dutch musician and producer Jori Collignon. “To gain inspiration for this album, we travelled in South Africa, where Cata was born and, for the most part, grew up,” says Collignon. “We spent ten days in Cape Town and ten days in Johannesburg, recording artists from a very wide range of styles: hip hop, rock, traditional music, electronica... Back in Amsterdam it was quite a challenge to make a coherent record out of all that. We recorded in the studio with various musicians, including Gino Bombrini (percussion) and Daniel Rose (sitar, guitar, and saz), who are now part of our live act.”

How did you arrive at such a diversity of sounds?
Jori Collignon: We don’t feel restricted to experimenting with styles. Cata is a great inspiration for me: she keeps coming up with different kinds of music. We’re not purists; when we get working on a particular genre, we usually finish up with something different. The world is so big and colourful: there is still so much music to discover – it’s an inexhaustible source. Recently we were on the French island Réunion, where they play maloya. We met musicians who make their own instruments. It doesn’t get better than discoveries like that. We pick that up so we can incorporate it into our own music.

How do you guys manage to sing in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Zulu?
Collignon: Cata doesn’t speak any Xhosa or Zulu: that’s the rappers on the album. South Africa has eleven official languages: it’s literally a rainbow nation. That mix of languages goes well with our mix of styles. Cata has travelled a lot. In addition to South Africa, she lived in the Azores, Argentina, and Spain before moving to Amsterdam. She has an emotional connection with languages and would love to be able to speak every language in the world!

Are the lyrics about your trip to South Africa?
Collignon: Some of the lyrics were written with the people there, about stuff out of their everyday lives or things we came across. Others are about how we see the world, in a social and poetic way. When we look around us, there are a lot of things that get to us.

Riots in the Jungle dates from late 2012. Is there new material on the way?
Collignon: The concert in Brussels is the last of a long tour, 150 shows, before we go into the studio in January. We’re really looking forward to it, without knowing how it will turn out. That’s exciting in itself. Through playing live, the band has become stronger: now there are four of us, instead of two, so the possibilities are greater. The interaction with the public will certainly have an influence on the new material. We want to record with the guys from Réunion, with a reggae band from China... There is really no shortage of possibilities – which is a problem in itself! [Laughs]

Skip&Die • 15/12, 19.30, €15/18, Botanique, Koningsstraat 236 rue Royale, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, 02-218.37.32, www.botanique.be