National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Ten years ago, when Jay Malinowski met Eon Sinclair at Queens University in Ontario, they had no idea their mutual love in many musical genres would lead them to a career in music. Today along with drummer Sekou Lumumba, they're known as Bedouin Soundclash - one of Canada's hottest new musical exports.

In 2004, the band created buzz in Canada with Sounding A Mosaic, garnering them their first Juno Award for New Group of the Year in 2005. Since then, they've released three more records and received a number of Canadian accolades and nominations along the way. Now they're poised to take on the world with Light The Horizon, their new release on Nat Geo Music. Recorded in Philadelphia, Light The Horizon was produced by King Britt, who astounded the band with his vast knowledge of music history.

Joining the band on the record for the first time is drummer Sekou Lumumba, whom his bandmates proudly proclaim to be one of the best drummers in Canada. Self-taught, Lumumba plays by ear; and has the uncanny ability to play to almost every style of music. Coming from an R&B, Latin and rock background, he quickly adapted to Bedouin Soundclash 's already-established reggae, rock, and folk sound.

The band sat down with Nat Geo Music to reflect on the passing year, the making of the new album, reinventing their sound and excitement for their upcoming U.S. tour.

Nat Geo Music: So Jay, how did you and Eon get to know each other?

Jay: Eon and I were both going to the same college; a smaller university, very preppy and both felt like we didn't belong. At that time, no one listened to The Clash that I knew. So as we became friends we began trading records, and it became really exciting because we started learning from each other; like he didn't know who Joe Strummer was, and I didn't know who Dennis Brown was. After a week of trading records, I saw him playing Bass and I told him I played guitar and we should get together and jam one day. This all came from us forming a friendship. That's been the centerpiece for us our entire career.

What kind of music did you grow up listening to?

Jay: Joe strummer was really the first artist I connected to. My mom raised me on a lot of folk, from Bob Dylan to Leonard Cohen. Joe Strummer was kind of like my folk. He was probably the biggest influence to me because I was young when I got into The Clash, and that's how I got into reggae. I've always been interested in people who write songs and then introduce an element that shouldn't be there; Paul Simon for example, is amazing at doing that. He always explored different rhythms and used Brazilian and African instrumentation.

Eon: My parents are West Indian, and my dad always had a keen interest in music and deejaying and collected a lot of records; ska, reggae and a lot of soul. He even loved classic Motown oldies. Growing up every Saturday morning starting around breakfast time, the radio or records would play throughout the day as we all cleaned and did tasks around the house. That was great exposure for me as a kid to all different kinds of music.

Sekou: I grew up on all different kinds of music; everything from Fishbone, to Robert Palmer, Steelie Dan and 50's music from western movies.

Where does your band name come from?

Jay: Bedouin Soundclash is the name of a record from Badawi. It was a record I loved growing up and it incorporated Bedouin instrumentation with Dub. We started to go by that name, and it just stuck after a while.

Sekou, what's it like being the new band member?

Sekou: If you get to meet Eon and Jay, you'll see in addition to playing and recording together, that they're best friends and they've been that way for ten years. They have a 'shorthand' that they speak to each other in, and understand each other better than anyone else. When I initially signed on as their new drummer, they pretty much let me know -along with our manager this was going to be a three-member band, a unit.; not just a guy they hired who clocked out at the end of the day and not really take any interest.

Coming in was a little intimidating because they do what they do very well and I wanted to do a great job, but I'm also the new guy. By the time we went to the studio we'd been working and rehearsing in pre productions for a couple of months, so I felt really good about what we were creating and we were all on the same page with what we wanted the outcome to be. They were really great with letting me be expressive with my ideas. Everything that I thought would work they really liked and it was a lot of positive encouragement.

...And Jay, Eon, what does Sekou bring to the band?

Jay: Sekou's personality shines when he plays is sort of laid-back; almost behind the beat, and I think he really chilled out the band. In our earlier career, we had a harder edge to our sound; so having Sekou with us now has kind of smoothed out our sound. We used all of his first-takes he recorded for this album. He has a lot of experience from how much playing he's done. I was once told 'you can tell a mature drummer by his kick' and you can certainly made that statement about Sekou

Eon: When we play the old songs on tour, pretty much sounds different; it's just the dynamic of how he plays and the consistency of it. There are some songs that we've completely reworked like a song called Jeb Rand and When The Night Fills My Song which has been our biggest singles is pretty much the same, but we just made some technique changes to it. So for the fans that love the old songs but are worried whether or not they're going to sounds extremely different, I'd say you don't have anything to worry about because Sekou represents the spirit of all those songs as if he's been there. It's a motivating force to have found someone like him!

King Britt produced the new record, what was working with him like?

Jay: King Britt was basically the centerpiece of the whole record. We heard a remix he did with one of our previous songs. Our paths eventually crossed at a friend's house over dinner. Since he never produced a band before, we really wanted him on board with us. So we went down to Philly, and basically it was like going to school. He brought in tons of musicians he knows; he's basically a cultural ambassador for Philly. There's such a rich musical history there, it made us want to step our game up for him. It really was such a spiritual record for us to make because of how hard we worked and really rewarding to work with someone like [King Britt] because he really inspires you to do better.

Do you have any favorite songs on the record?

Jay: No One Gets Hurt is an important song for me. I wrote that song for Eon and initially was a lot happier sounding, then King Britt brought in this Ukulele player and he did this part that is now on the song and took everything else off it. So it became this very haunting piece. At first I didn't like it, but now when I listen to it, I realize he was totally right with that decision. So if it weren't for King [Britt], it would've never happened.

Sekou: I would say the favorite on the album is probably Brutal Hearts -the one I play the least in! That particular song is just all about the voice as opposed to the band. King [Britt] was also really great about setting an atmosphere for that song. It's got this really smoky, 1960's French film feel to it! [laughs]. When we were in the pre-production of it, it sounded nothing like that, it was definitely more of a band playing; but we wound up stripping it down, and it really worked out for the best that way. It just really stands out, I love it.

How do you feel about getting signed to Nat Geo Music?

Jay: National Geographic was dynamic to think of a magazine that has such a distinguished history moving into something like music. I feel our global roots exist in the music we were brought up on.

Sekou: When we were looking at different labels to join, Nat Geo Music's intentions seemed to have a hub for all different kinds of music; not just a style of music, or a certain regional type of music, but more of a cross blend of other things. Moving forth, that's what we want to do a lot more of to really blur lines with the music we create. Nat Geo Music really seems to build itself on; music that is unique and comes from different places, and represents different people. So to us, it really seemed like a natural fit!

Toronto is quite the multicultural metropolis. How does the city impact your music?

Eon: It's a great atmosphere for people to share and learn about cultures unlike their own. Having lived here my whole life and seeing how it's grown, I think what we do as a band is representative of what the city is really all about. I think Bedouin Soundclash is a unique Toronto experience to mesh genres in this way. It definitely takes a city of that size to do it, and have a sense of authenticity to it.

Jay: That's the really amazing thing about Canada that isn't really well known outside of the country; reflecting something that's taking place in Toronto where you can experience music like reggae and dancehall in places you would never expect. Artists like K-os and K'naan are reflecting that as well. We're really proud to be Canadian and it makes sense to us.

You just wrapped up a tour that included performances in India and the World Expo in Shanghai. How was touring in countries outside your comfort zone?

Eon: I looked forward to going to both places, I found them both to be really, really interesting. Obviously the lack of personal space is something totally different than what we're used to in North America-especially up here in Canada where we have tons of it![laughs]. With India it was quite similar in terms of the density of people. At times, it can feel a bit overwhelming when dealing with the lack of communication but again, you find interesting ways to communicate as a musician. Even just learning little expressions like 'Ni hao' got us a pretty good response. They even started waving paper Canadian flags at one point! These global experiences challenge you to find other ways of getting the same message across.

Sekou: We definitely got stared at a lot! I like to be incognito when I'm out, and it's really hard to do that when you're a six foot black guy with a bunch of tattoos! When we played the World Expo in Shanghai, thankfully the first two rows were Canadian and familiar with the band. They not only sang along and danced the entire time, but they got the Chinese audience to get up and dance?something the World Expo promoter had never seen before! Chinese audiences are generally conservative. Whether they like the group or not, they will normally sit through the entire performance, clap politely and wait for your next song to begin. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have gone there, I genuinely feel like travel broadens the mind.

How are you feeling about your upcoming US release and tour?

Eon: I think most musicians agree that the US market is the biggest nut to crack and I think because there are a lot of massive markets to play, it's geographically big, its really dense and there are so many other artists trying to do the same thing. And being neighboring of one another and so closely-tied we are as Canadians, it can be a daunting task and takes a lot of work to try and takes the right circumstance to have to opportunity to break into it.

Jay: I think last year, we made the decision that we were going to do this for ourselves and that's been our ethic since then and it's really changed our perspective on how we make music; that it always has to be for yourself. When you do things for yourself and for not for any other reasons, the quality tends to be a lot better. We learned to take the pressure off ourselves, and I think what the future of what we're going to do is just really supporting ourselves as musicians and any of our own personal endeavors. That to me, is the essence of a band; supporting each other as friends.