Tsetse Music: Band & Musicians (Text)

Tsetse Music Productions is an intercultural music platform founded by

🔊 Music producer Simon Lazarú,
🎸 Reggae musician Lennox Wilson.
They created this platform to bring together musicians from various parts of the world and a wide range of cultural backgrounds.

Lennox brought in his bassist, 

🎸Ricardo Burns from Los Angeles,
who added a wide spectrum of  pop influences rooted in his “Spanglish” upbringing in L.A .

Burns then recommended his friend from New York,

🎹  Jeff Wanton,
whose funky piano riffs gave Tsetse its bluesy feel and background, since he was a member of a Southern gospel church since childhood.

Jeff, in turn, brought two popular South African jazz saxophonists,

🎷  Dudu Ramophosa, 
🎷 Sonny Huddleston Jr.,
who left their apartheid-stricken home country to make it in the music scene of the Big Apple, bringing Kwela, Marabi, and Jive.

These African elements were completed by

🎵 Salim Matata from Tanzania,

 who studied indigenous music at the Art College of Bagamoyo  and played instruments like Mbira and Sansa.

🥁  Zé Rodriguez from Salvador da Bahía in Brazil,
whose background in the “Blocos Afros” with instruments like atabaque, agogô, or  surdo are no less African.

To incorporate Latin elements into their program, Lennox and Simon invited

🎤 Colombian cumbia musician Candelario Ruiz,
🥁  Cuban percussionist  Ivan Valdez,
🎺 Panamanian trumpeter Ronny McLean,
all of whom grew up with different kinds of Caribbean sounds like Soca, Salsa, Rumba or Merengue.

As Tsetse aimed to enhance real intercultural exchange, they also integrated Celtic and British folk elements. They brought in

📯 Nova Scotian Harry White from Halifax, Afro-Celtic specialist on Irish pipes,
🪕 British Chris Bacon on folk guitar, dulcimer, and banjo.

Together, these musicians hopefully created a unique sound that blended elements of their respective musical traditions into a cohesive whole.

Lastly, Simon Lazarú deserves special mention, who considers himself a mixture of musician, roadie, coffee-maker, producer, musicologist, pizzaboy, taxi-driver, lecturer, percussionist, and moderator. His contribution has been invaluable to this project.

(See also Video)