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 From the copperbelt round the way boy next door, to the household name in Zambia and a Kora nomination now under his belt, its hard to keep up with Zed’s latest music sensation Jordan “JK” Katembula.
Team BH caught up with JK on his recent visit to South Africa, a short stay I which he managed to fit in attending the Kora Awards 2002 and blessing the Zed/SA community with a ground rocking show along side Danny, Joe “the Ambassador” Chibangu and Louis X. The show was attended by almost every Zed person who could make to Saints in Rivonia and had people bouncing off the walls in the place.
Back to JK, after his hot performance some rest and the awards ceremony, we caught up with him at a Johannesburg hot spot to get up to speed on what he is up to where he is taking his career. | BH: | how did it feel; ending up a Kora nominee with your first release? | | JK: | It surely made Joe and I very happy, but it was a challenge in itself because I am a new kid on the block. At the same time it showed that our hard work paid off. | | BH: | How long did it take to put the album together? | | JK: | Actually we took our time to put the product together because we were not panicking while recording, but in all we spent about two months in the studio. | | BH: | What about the songs, did you write them all yourself? | | JK: | I co-wrote most of them but those that I did not write were written by Joe and Louis X and one of the Lozi tracks was written by one of the Shatel ladies. | | BH: | How do write your music, where do you get inspiration? | | JK: | I get inspiration from everyday life, like I could like the way one of the ladies in here are walking and that might just turn into a song by itself. | | BH: | How does it feel to have one of the best Zambian debuts in recent Zambian music? | | JK: | Well I must say that I am overjoyed because in the mid 90’s Zed music kind of fell off and the local market was infiltrated by all this foreign music, but what we did to bring it back was update our formulas and it worked. | | BH: | When you first did it were you positive that it was going to work? | | JK: | I must admit that it was a lot of trial and error but people loved it and it worked, I must give respect to Daddy Zemus (RIP), who I think is the pioneer of all this. What he did with mixing the western sound with the Zed feel is out of this world. | | BH: | What do you call your sound? | | JK: | I call my sound a sort of fusion, but to keep it simple I can just call it AfroPop, there is some Kalindula, Ragga, Rhumba and some pop, all mixed together. | | BH: | Where does your love for music come from? | | JK: | Think it is an in born thing, non of my family is musical and they are all surprised that I have come this far. My influences are Papa Wmba, the late Akim Simukonda. | | BH: | How are you handling being JK, is it easy? | | JK: | It is quite difficult, its not always nice, one day you wake up and people are like we love JK he’s the one and the next day it’s a whole different story, they invent stories and stuff. But you just have to learn to handle it I guess. | | BH: | Who is your competition at the moment? | | JK: | At the moment it’s the likes of Nasty D and Aribusu. | | BH: | Have you always been a solo act? | | JK: | Before I formed my group New Age I sung with MC Wabwino, that was my first real attempt at serious music. | | BH: | So where is JK going to now? | | JK: | Well, now I got my Kora nomination and the Album is selling well even a year down the line, I think Joe and I are going places because we are improving on our formula again. | | BH: | You sing in a lot of languages, which is your most comfortable? | | JK: | I don’t really have one that I prefer, but Bemba is the most simple because I speak it all the time but on my next album I will even have a Swahili track. | The boy was born and raised on the belts and is more than proud of and it shows in his attitude and slang. He moved to LSK in 1998, through a job transfer at Zamtel. From where he stands, the Zed music scene is in its infant stages of its own rebirth and is heading in one direction only UP! | JK: | What we need in the industry though is unity, that will give us more recognition like our brothers and sisters have done in SA. Looking at the way they performed at the independence day bash, Zambian musicians seem to be showing true unity –no player hating!! | | BH: | What made you decide to sing in local languages instead of English? | | JK: | I thought I would use languages that I was comfortable singing with, I felt that if I used English I would sound fake and I would not have that much appeal to my home market. | | BH: | For the ladies, So is JK single? | | JK: | No JK is very much spoken for and has a fiancé who is at school in Australia at the moment, but she will be back to see me in December. | This boy earns a living from his music career and has managed to convince his parents that his passion for the art will take him palaces. JK was interviewed in Johannesburg, South Africa by K'quriaz. Photos courtesy of K'quriaz
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