James Akenson – Editors Introduction
Country Music may have strong roots in the U.S. South, but it isn’t just southern. The spread of Country Music has lots of variables, factors, influences causing it to spread far and wide from “The Big Bang of Country Music” of the Bristol Tennessee recording session of 1927.The likes of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family recorded in the Bristol Sessions ‘and the rest is history.”
The music of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers didn’t just stay in the U.S. South but went to other continents such as Australia. Jimmie Rodger’s music even managed to travel to Africa.
Africa, you say? Yes. Country Music managed to travel to Africa. In my teaching of social studies methods class at Tennessee Tech University to deal with several important big ideas. Most students have no idea that Country Music has managed to spread….big term Cultural Diffusion…throughout much of the world.
Dusty Simelane lives in Eswatini formerly known as Swaziland. Surprised by Arica and Country Music? Well there is some great Country Music in Kenya. Sir Elvis and others do very well. Muzunga David in Uganda does a great work for Country Music. Even 92.7FM Radio Bob in Kampala plays Country Music. A Grand Ole Opry contest got a lot of entries from West Africa.
Coming into contact with Ismail Naban of Banjul in Gamia, West Africa has been a pleasure. Naban writes about Country Music. He is even a nominee for the Chet Flippo Excellence in Country Music Journalism Award.
The Flippo Award is presented each year at the international Country Music Conference held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A. in the Massey Business Center overlooking Music Row and downtown Nashville.
I’m particularly interested in Naban’s interview of Dusty and Stones due to my contact with Dusty Simelane via FaceBook and email. We ALMOST got to meet in person when Dusty and Stones visited Nashville for a recording session before he went to Texas.
My teaching schedule conflicted and I couldn’t make it over to Nashville. I couldn’t make it just eighty miles after Dusty had traveled all the way from Eswatini (Swaziland). I even wrote an article for “Country Underground Australia” in 2017 titled “Dusty Roads? Dusty Rhodes? Slim Dusty? No!: Dusty Simelane.”
I greatly enjoy using Dusty Simelane in my social studies teaching methods classes. I engage future teachers with vocabulary and map work as they make predictions.
If Dusty is truly a Country Music artist, predict what he will wear, what instrument will he play, what vehicle will be in the video, what will the setting look like, and what will the road he comes walking on look like? We then watch Dusty and Stones to confirm predictions.
Dusty and Stones made it on the Grand Ole Opry in 2023. The Opry description suggests the absolute perfect upbringing for a Country Music artist.
Two rising stars of Africa’s nascent country music scene, cousins Gazi “Dusty” Simelane and Linda “Stones” Msibi grew up together in the remote Mooihoek Valley in the tiny African Kingdom Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland), where they herded their family’s cattle after school and went to church every Sunday to watch their grandfather preach.
When the Swati national radio station began broadcasting a weekly program of classic American country music, the cousins heard the joys and hardships of their rural lives reflected in the songs of artists like Dolly Parton and Hank Williams. They became determined to develop a distinctly African take on this historically American genre of music.
So. Are you worried about “Keeping It Country”? Not to worry. Dusty and Stones are the ‘real deal.’ They’re country through and through. Enjoy Ismail Naban’s interview with Dusty and Stones.
Who are Dusty and Stones?
Ismaila M.S. Naban, Banhjul The Gambia
In the field of music, like many other industries, it is not uncommon for people who started the journey together, wading through all odds, to later part ways and each going solo when the enterprise starts to grow, and fame and benefits abound. Don’t forget, even the late Bob, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer had suffered that fate.
Sticking together to the end, therefore, requires special bonds that are hard to be broken by the vices that are usually associated with successful careers like that of the star artists’.
So, how did Africa’s country duet, popularly known by their sobriquets Dusty and Stones, manage to maintain their relationship this far to the admiration of many both in Africa and beyond?
The answer could be found in this explanation by the Eswatini’s country icons:
We, being cousins, has made it easy (for us). Maybe, we and the Bellamy Brothers have that in common, hence they themselves are together to date. So we believe being a family has made it easier for us to maintain our “friendship” up to this far. That also has helped us in being unique in that we work together, share ideas even when they differ, since we have our different styles of playing and music approach. When we bring it all together, we sound unique, satisfying a wider audience.
Gazi “Dusty” Simelane (born on 22 March, 1982) and Linda “Stones” Msibi (born 23 December 1983) hail from Mooihoek in the Shiselweni region of the Kingdom of Eswatini.
They are winners of best country music Artists/Group Awards and as cousins, they spent most of their childhood in Mooihoeks, heading their family’s cattle and working on the fields.
The duet’s country music success in a continent where Amapiano, African hip-hop, Afrobeats, and Reggae music are more common among the youth folk is no mean feat.
There seems to be inadequate promotion and support for this genre of music in sub-Saharan Africa, and by their own admission, they later discovered that country music is not an easy music genre to pursue, with all the technicalities of playing instruments and making the music sound “Country”. But their passion for music helped them soldier on, the Eswatini country stars started.
Growing up around music, all thanks to Dusty’s brother Sicelo who kept a collection of country music, Dusty and Stones are sort of related with the stories told in the songs, songs about God, love, family and basic life in the countryside and its landscape.
At the beginning, Dusty had made guitars out of old oil cans to try and imitate the music they heard play on the radio. But it was not until Dusty’s time at varsity when he and Sicelo were invited to join the Eswatini Country Music Association’s event that Dusty met fellow country musicians.
They taught him how to play and he was later given a guitar by the then association’s president Mr. Zombodze Dlamini. During schools break, Dusty would come home with the guitar and share the lessons with Stones….and the rest was history.
It hasn’t been easy for the duet because the music industry in the Southern African nation of Eswatini is not that vibrant and one couldn’t make a living solely out of it, hence their decision to take up day jobs to help them in chasing their childhood dreams.
According to the duo, they had to learn from the music they were listening to so as to match the sounds they heard in terms of the level of playing the instruments to their arrangements in a song.
To think that we never got formal lessons for that, yet our music has been compared to that of the US, is fulfilling. It hasn’t been easy though. Hard work coupled with determination and the passion for the music helped us through,
Having grown up in the country, the two found that they related more to country music than to any other music genre, noting the stories about family, the love for God, the country life, life in the farms, mountains, that’s the environment they grew up on.
Thanks to Alan Jackson’s music, Dusty and Stones got introduced to players like Brent Mason. And as they got to know more about Brent, a whole new world of chicken picking was opened to them.
The likes of James Burton, John Jorgensen, as well as singer-song writers who were great guitarist themselves like Vince Gill, Brad Paisley and Steve Wariner among others had great influence on the country duet from Eswatini.
They also greatly admire fiddlers like Mark O’Connor, Stuart Ian Duncan, Jimmy Mattingly (who plays in their songs), the Nashville Cats, Paul Franklin, Tony Rice, Bryan Sutton, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Paul Franklin, Hargus “Pig” Robbins, Buck Trent and Earl Scruggs.
Dusty and Stones play all the guitars, acoustic, electric and bass. Dusty also plays fiddle and mandolin while Stones plays banjo and harmonica.
Their band, comprised of local players, is called The Buck Horns Band and their first album, Mooihoek Country Fever was recoded in Eswatini. The album features their hit songs Home, Ride with Me and Yolanda Wami. The single Mbali Lenhle is in Eswatini, and had Sez and Jimmy Mattingly, Garth Brook fiddler, play on the single.
Their latest singles, The River, This Time and The Common Guy were recorded in Nashville at Jimie Tates’ Rukkus Room Recording Studio. The best of Nashville session musicians played in the record. All these songs are available from all digital platform like Spotify, You Tube, iTunes, Bandcamp, to name but a few.
Dusty and Stones have collaborated with a Mexican group, Country Rio. They met at the Texas Awards in Jefferson, which was an amazing experience for the duet as it has helped in introducing them and their music to a wider audience.
In Eating, the duo won three Tihlabani awards for best country music duo/artist, which were national awards.They also won an MTN Music award for Best Country Music Duo /Artist, as well as two international awards for best country, one in the SACMAF Music Awards 2017 in South Africa and the other in the 2017 edition Texas Sounds International Awards held in Jefferson, Texas.
However, their major career success was playing at the grandest stage of all country music stages, the Grand Ole Opry. This was last year on September 29. To them it was a dream come true, something they had always dreamt about ever since they started their music journey.
We have also had numerous performances on amazing music events like the prestigious MTN Bush Fire, Standard Bank Luju Festival and Country music Festival, all these taking place here in Eswatini. Our most memorable event that we performed in was the Treefort Music Festival in Boise, Idaho. This was a weeklong event in which we had three amazing performances on different stages. It was awesome.
As the two country stars told this reporter, music is a universal language that sees neither color nor race. This is a language, more like sports, that every human race is always ready to listen to and take the message passed through.
As country music artists, they believe that any message they feel must be passed across will be through a song. Music, as with sports, has the power to unite all human kind regardless of social belonging, race and/or political beliefs.
Through their music, they plan to educate, sensitise and help spread the message of love for one another, a love that sees no colour, race nor social or political belonging. Country music, they argue, always addresses real life issues.
They do have a song which they recorded for Lusweti, a Non-Governmental organization indigenous to Eswatini, dedicated to the creation and provision of innovative social behavior change communication program.
On what, in their opinions, should be done by the DJs, promoters, producers and even African governments to help Africa’s Country artists penetrate the industry and have greater value for their efforts, Dusty and Stones honestly charged,
It all starts with us country music artists by producing content that is so appealing and meaningful to the audience such that every DJ, promoter, corporate and government will feel a strong need to associate with or have country music in their events. As artists, we need to prove that country music can pull out an equal crowd as the other music genres then we can start requesting or lobbying for equal participation. Numbers or statistics (followership) are key for music promoters and event organizers in determining if they must add a particular artist in their events lineup.
Their maiden documentary film produced by American film producer, former DJ Jesse Rudoy who lives in New York, came about through their Home music video on YouTube. Jesse reached out to them via Skype, sharing his interest in documenting their music life and journey.
Coincidentally, during the time of the filming, they were invited and nominated for Texas Sounds International Music Award and so it all started.
The documentary chronicles their first trip to the home of country music, their first stop being Nashville where they recorded three of their original songs at the Rukkus Room in Nashville.
It goes on capturing their experience in Texas, winning an award at The Texas Sounds and the moments when they returned home. The reaction has been amazing and the film has won nine awards so far.
In their own words:
The feedback we’ve been getting from all those who’ve watched it has been amazing, everyone enjoyed the film. Through the film our fans base has increased tremendously. Something worth mentioning is that, as Jesse said, what attracted him into working with us is that he found us authentic.
We write our own music, and in our mother language too. We do not try to sound like the American country music artist and that we are proud of who we are and us being Emaswati from Mooihoek.
If that has worked for us it surely can work for every country music artist in Africa. The world is not looking for another Don Williams, Dolly Parton or Alan Jackson. The world wants something new and authentic.
Thanks to the documentary and us remaining true and authentic, our all-time dream of playing our songs at the grandest stage of country music, The Grand Ole Opry, was fulfilled when we made our Opry debut on September 30, 2023.
The duet who emphasized the importance of collaborations, said they are also looking at fostering relations with one legendary country music duo who visited Africa, adding:
We will continue availing ourselves with any music artist we believe align to our ideas and values so as to catapult African country music to higher heights. We’d also love to collaborate with our fellow Africans.
Dusty and Stones are back in the studio recording songs that they wrote, and are hoping to release them early in 2024.
Also, with our last trip to the United States for our Opry debut, we met a couple of industry players who are helping us secure a couple of tours in the US beginning of their summer. So, we are hopeful that all goes well and we have all those plans come to fruition.
Dusty and Stones firmly believe that aspiring and future country artists in Africa must be sure that they have a hunger for success and that they are passionate enough to overcome the many challenges that will come their way.
They should write their own songs, tell their own stories and be authentic and original in the process. All that will set them apart from the rest. Also they must learn to play as many instruments as they can and dive deep into mastering at least one or maybe more instruments.
They also vowed to keep raising the Mooihoek and Eswatini flags, promoting the African continent and most of all, keep on keeping it country, forever.
