I started in reggae in 2001 and became the guitarist / musical director of a band called Reobote Zion . I learned a lot during that season . We were all kids with no experience . But all this was a great learning experience . With 22 years of experience in playing reggae , I ’ ve had the honor of backing some of the greatest legends in reggae like Gregory Isaacs , Israel vibration , EEK-A-MOUSE , The Abyssinias , Johnny Clark , Clinton Fearon , and many others . This taught me the fundamentals of the genre . These principles have served me well while playing with Christafari for the last 13 years .
[ WM ] You first played with Christafari in 2009 and officially joined in 2016 . Now you are the band ’ s Musical Director , and you work with all the musicians in the band in addition to producing all of the music . The band plays 20-30 different countries a year ( pre and post Covid ) and you end up recording and producing everything while on tour … whether with the Havasupai Indians in the bottom of the Grand Canyon , or in Brazil , using samba beats , or in Rwanda with Soukous guitar or being inspired by the sounds in Vietnam .
What gear are you using and what is your approach to capturing all of this different musical inspiration ?
[ Renato ] Having traveled to so many countries was like an international buffet of sounds for me . Getting to know all these different musical tones , scales , tones , and polyrhythms has been wild ! It is truly inspirational .
We had to do something with all of these ideas we were being inspired to write and couldn ’ t afford to wait until got home to record them . So , I started traveling with my MacBook Pro , a small 2-channel audio interface , and a microphone to record vocals .
We used our stage instruments and did our best to capture all the local musical flavors . We ’ d bring in musicians / instrumentalists that shared the stage with us earlier that night , and record them in our hotel room , tracking everything from Soukous Guitar to a kazoo made out of a gourd . It was ethnomusicology at its best ! No amount of money can buy this experience and knowledge . The equipment we use is simple like the Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 .
Valley of Decision
What really matters is being open to new sound possibilities , especially in Asia , where you have such melodic richness , or Africa with rhythmic richness . While I may have studied at one of the best music universities in Brazil , I ’ ve learned and grown so much more musically while on the tour with Christafari . Nothing else compares !
[ WM ] Your band leader Mark tells me you are one of those guys that will take an idea he sends you from a voice memo of him just singing - with no key reference - and you will spend a day or two and build an entire song around it while playing every single instrument .
52 October 2022
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