[How did you started in the music business?]
I was at EMI maybe seven or eight years, which was then called EMI Brigadiers, and was doing A&R and Marketing for the labels like Electrola, Pathe Marconi, Bovema Negram, the European EMI labels, representing the EMI artists. I went overseas to an EMI conference and visited all the different countries getting to know and understand their markets and artists. At EMI/UK I met up with the head of Abbey Road studios who assisted me in bringing back [PETER] TOSH’s albums for release in South Africa. And that’s a whole different story, because to promote it you had a problem. You couldn’t get airplay [because it was banned by the SABC]. If you were caught having those albums in your car, you can imagine what would’ve happened in those days [one could be arrested for possessing banned material]. Fortunately there were two independent radio stations that agreed to play the content, Radio Bop and Radio Swazi, both across the border. Tosh became the biggest selling album for EMI during that period.
Then I moved over to GRC – they hired me to run Epic Records in South Africa. In a nutshell, it was the early days of WHAM, SADE, DEAD OR ALIVE, MICHAEL JACKSON, a very exciting period – unbelievable. While I was there, there was an amalgamation between the companies, GRC and Gallo. Peter Gallo came in and put GRC, which represented CBS and Epic, together in one company with the Gallo local division, which created the most successful record company in SA, Gallo GRC. I was doing a lot of the dance stuff for Epic Records, releasing special mixes of Wham, Sade, etc, and we were breaking stuff here and sending feedback to London, which influenced the decisions regarding their choice of follow-up singles. During this time I met up with the local Gallo musicians, so I got a passion for working with the local division. It was great to be involved with every aspect of developing the artists’ true potential, from the selection of the songs to the recording process, artwork and then marketing In those days video was just emerging, so a whole new marketing approach was implemented. That’s where I met up with RAY [PHIRI of Stimela], JOE SHABALALA [Ladysmith Black Mambazo], RICHARD SILUMA [producer of LUCKY DUBE] – and worked there very happily for many years. The experience of marketing Tosh at EMI was applied at Gallo as Lucky was the perfect performer to raise the reggae flag. This led to Lucky being the biggest seller during that time – multi, multi-platinum!
After that I decided to go and set up my own record company.
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| With Ray from 2 Unlimited and Tembi from DPMC. |
The first company I set up was DPMC – Dave Penhale Music Company. I did a deal with Transistor Records, where they offered the infrastructure via Tusk, which was Warner Brothers in South Africa. What I was interested in was setting up a bonafide kind of local division, just with the local guys that I liked working with. So a lot of guys came across and joined me from Gallo. DON LAKA came, ALEC KHAOLI/UMOJA/COLIN [SMITH] – and the first 2-3 years it was really lekka, really good fun. Some of them still had deals with Gallo, like Alec Khaoli stayed with Gallo as Om Alec Khaoli, but the Umoja album he put through me.
[How did J.E. Movement come about?]
J.E. MOVEMENT was a project put together by Chris Ghelakis. He had JAMES [NYINGWA] at his studio, working as an in-house producer. He was a multitalented guy, he could play keyboards and was the most amazing bass guitarist ever – unbelievable, one of the best. That [talent] came in from his head and he channeled it. This guy was phenomenal. His basslines were just at another level. And that’s how I came to know him.
Word got out that we were on the up, and things were going well. That’s when CHRIS GHELAKIS contacted me and said he’s got a whole lot of content, a whole lot of new stuff — would my label DPMC be interested in representing some artists he’s working on in the studio? So I went to go and meet him at his studio [TRS] in Plein Street, near Joubert Park. Then of course Chris introduced me to GEORGE VARDAS. So when I met with George Vardas, I said: ‘OK let’s hear what you guys are doing.’ George played me some tracks which he was working on, with Chris and other people. The one was ‘Mama’s Baby’ by SYDNEY [MOGOPODI]. The other track was some stuff from J.E. MOVEMENT. When I heard this, I thought ‘Wow, this is really cutting-edge stuff – this is bang on the money!’ The magic was also George Vardas, an incredibly gifted musician, engineer and producer, plus he had the ability to get the best out of artists when it came to vocals. George was the secret ingredient to so many new sounds and vibes!
I remember saying to Chris, ‘Chris, you’ve got a huge hit with ‘Mama’s Baby’, it is absolutely massive.’ He put that out through Selwyn [Shandel] but it was recorded in Chris’s studio. I’m not too sure who played the bassline on that, it might’ve been James.
I fell in love with James’s bass. So I said to Chris, ‘You’ve got J.E. Movement, you’re putting it out through CSR’ – or whichever company he had at that stage – ‘so let’s hunt around and find something else.’ Then George came up with these kids called NEW AGE KIDS. He used James to lay down the bass and lot of that vibe. The bass killed — the bass just killed. It was hooks, hooks, hooks!
And that was it, really. That’s all I had the time [for] and unfortunately I didn’t really spend time with James in the studio. It’s just that I knew he was laying down bass tracks for New Age Kids, and then obviously New Age Kids came through my company, DPMC, and we launched it. It did well, we released 2 or 3 albums. Marcus the vocalist was really good. If we had a better infrastructure to facilitate tours, things would have been a lot better.
And then unfortunately I heard that James was killed – terrible … It shocked all of us to the core, so senseless! A wonderful soul untimely taken!
[Were J.E. MOVEMENT trying to do something new? How did it compare to what else was out there at the time?]
J.E. Movement, Sydney and New Age Kids – that stuff was different in the sense that the basslines were very dominant in the songs. If you listen to New Age Kids, with their song ‘Get Down’, [or Sydney’s] ‘Mama’s Baby’, the same thing with J.E. Movement. I’d say it was an evolution and a progression in the sense that James had paid his dues, and he had extra time to spend in the studio, to fine-tune those killer bass licks. So with all guys [talented musicians], they are trying to create new stuff. They would never want to copy or to and follow a trend, they were pushing the boundaries and setting the trend.
For me, these guys were the true fathers of Afrobeats, exactly what’s happening globally in the world [today] … It moved very far away from the bubblegum kind of sound that was dominating at that time. I suppose, with all the synths and all that kind of stuff, it was – gee whiz – it was like almost house/EDM with Afro bass licks and percussion. That stuff you can just remix now – it’s relevant.
[Did James play the basslines on guitar or synth?]
As far as I know, he played a bass synth and a bass guitar.
When I was at Gallo, there were two guys who intrigued me so much. I used to be a bass guitarist, a terrible one — so I love bass, I really do.
When I saw LES GOODE in Johannesburg … we were at Plumb Crazy with KATE BUSH and her band – not gigging, just partying. Kate was so impressed, she took him back to London. That’s when I hung up my bass guitar because Les was just unbelievable, best of the best!
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| With Swiss artist DJ Bobo on his SA promo tour in 1990. |
While at Gallo, we flew up a youngster from Durban called VICTOR MASONDO ... he was still a lecturer in Durban. BENJAMIN DUBE said to me he wants something different for his album, and I said, ‘what?’ He said there’s this guy he knows from Durban, Victor Masondo, who is hectic! And I said, ‘well, we’ve never used him before [but] Benjamin if you want him up, we’ll put it in the budget and we’ll fly him up [to Joburg],’ which we did. That first album by Benjamin Dube, if you listen to it, aah man, those bass notes by Victor, were unbelievable. He used to play a fretless bass as well.
So my headspace was into bass.
The other guy that I loved was OM ALEC KHAOLI, also a brilliant bass player, gifted keyboard player. He used to alternate – he used to play those bass riffs on a special keyboard that he used to dangle around his neck, almost like a guitar. And when he was in the studio, he used to also pick up his bass and lay down the most ridiculous stuff.
So those guys were moving, for me, in a different direction to what poppy stuff was going down. And if you were a muso, you got it, you understood it. And that’s why I loved it. Hence I think James was right there, for me, in the top 3, top 5 as a bass player, or as a composer.
[What market was J.E. MOVEMENT aimed at? Was it purely for black urban market or also crossover to whites or the international?]
My headspace from the word go — because of Gallo, when I was at Gallo, you must remember we had put together a couple of bands that linked up with GILBERT CASTRO of CELLULOID RECORDS in France, and he was busy touring them there — so we were always very keen to get our content out [of SA] and push it [internationally]. The whole essence was to make our stuff go international. There was a huge push on that. And it was the hardest thing in the world, because you had all these problems. And that’s the story I can tell you about Ray [Phiri] – but that’s for a different time. We were always pushing that, so if guys had talent, yes, we would try and push them in the direction where we thought that the content at the end of the day would be globally acceptable. That’s what we were hoping to achieve.
[To what extent was this music political? What it a conscious political decision for black and white to work together? George said he never even considered collaboration to be political – it didn’t even occur to him]
Exactly. Look, I came from EMI. We were working with the likes of TOM VUMA, BRENDA FASSIE. I had MANNIE TULSIE in the office next door to me. Tom used to come in from CCP, which was in the same building. We all used to get together, sit and write stuff. Tom used to do the lyrics, bounce them with Mannie. So it was never [segregated]… it was musos, we all worked together, that was that.
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| With the late Steve Kekana |
The only problem was when you got in the car and you drove to SABC. When I took STEVE KEKANA to SABC, we’d go together in the car. At the SABC, I’d go in the one side [white entrance], and he would get out the car and go in the other side [black entrance]. Then we sign in and walk down the corridor, and go see [SABC station manager] CUTHBERT MASHEGO, and meet him at reception, he would take us down into the library. And then we would sit together, just like we sat in the car, telling him what we were getting up to. Then when split up and we came out via different exits. I mean, it was insane! It was insanity, absolute insanity.
It was dark …. when you hit the obstacles of what was happening. I remember taking COLIN [SMITH] and ALEC [KHAOLI] and we drove back into Soweto after a studio gig quite late at night, and we were coming out and then we were stopped, and they [police] wanted to know why we were driving, what we were doing in Soweto, all that bullshit… They used to stop LUCKY DUBE and RICHARD SILUMA because these guys had beautiful Mercs, and say ‘where do you get the money from?’
[SY BUTHELEZI is credited as executive producer on ‘Ma Dea Luv’ — who was he?]
SIMON! SIMON BUTHELEZI, yes! Sy came from CCP, EMI. I knew him very well at EMI, because he was always in and out of the offices. He was a sales guy for EMI, that’s how he started. And after doing that, he networked with all the guys, he had a great rapport with musicians, he used to get them to go to the shops and promote, all of that. He was doing amazing stuff for EMI in those days. And then I think he wanted to start a company, so he and Chris and somebody else – I think it was ROBBIE MANN – got together and set up CSR. And a lot of people thought that CSR was Chris, Simon and Robbie … Now I don’t know if that’s true, But what I do know is all three guys at that stage were working together on projects.
[How was J.E. MOVEMENT received in terms of sales?]
Look, I never saw sales on that because it was [released by] a separate company, namely CSR, Chris’s company . But it created a buzz. There was a lot of air activity happening, that I do know. A lot of radio stations were playing it — as like the new vibe, so it was kicking. I don’t know what the sales were, but they would not have been insignificant. I think they would’ve done quite well for a new release.
[Do you remember anything about the other member of JE Movement, ELLIOT FAKU?]
Elliot’s name rings a bell but I didn’t meet him at the time … James was the oke I dug, the bassist!
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| With US singer Timmy Thomas (right) and guys from Radio Metro and Radio Swazi. |
© 2025 Afrosynth
J.E. Movement's Ma Dea Luv (AFS057) will be out in mid-2025 on Afrosynth Records. Pre-order it here.
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