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Jinja Safari
Genre: Dance
Region: Sydney, NSW


When afro pop meets surf rock Jinja Safari like to coin it 'Forest Rock'.

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Interview: 10 May 2010
Tell us about your music – how did you develop your sound?
I grew up in Tasmania and my grandmother lives in Uganda, in the town of Jinja - so for some reason I always felt the connection to the music of Africa, and how, despite the oppressions of countless dictatorships, genocide and apartheid, the people of Africa always found a way to smash a drum, yelling with a giant smile, dancing barefoot in the dirt. Even though i'm a terrible dancer, and really shouldn't be doing it in public in the first place, ever, i've always thought dancing was an amazing form of expression. I think there is a big difference to the way people dance in clubs now days, to how it feels to dance alone on the beach in the middle of the night. Whether we admit it or not, everyone likes dancing. Some worse than others. We wanted to make music for those people who want to partake in a little reckless ugly dancing without feeling the social or physical restraints of having someone in a club 'grinding up in ya grill'.

Pepa lives on the coast, and I live in the city: so we tossed ideas back and forth across email after meeting over a beach campfire party earlier this year. We spent about 4 weekends recording all our ideas at his home studio, where he produced the tracks that we have now, which we're calling 'Forest Rock'.

We laughed the whole time, only speaking to each other in the 'crack fox' voice whilst we recorded guitar, keys, vocal parts, then banged on anything we could find for percussion. After a while, we realized we had a full set together and thought it could be fun to share it with our friends, so we put on a secret show in the forest of the central coast, got our friends to dress up as animals, and we all danced into the night.

What can the audience expect you debut show?
A bass player who looks like the singer from the Vasco Era, a drummer who looks like the singer from Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, a keyboard rider/singer who looks like the guy from the Mighty Boosh, and guitar player/singer who looks like Kevin Bacon, and a really, really sweaty percussionist.

In summary, 5 un-original looking white guys dancing badly to African-inspired beats. And all of our friends dressed up as Animals - this is how we like it.

What were you both doing before this?
Marcus was a TV soap actor and Pepa designed trophies. Either way they were geared for success.

What’s coming up in the future?
Probably more work on the construction site for our percussionist- Alister Pattern and myself; Hopefully lots more fun shows as well. We are looking forward to playing with Miami Horror on the 12th of June in Sydney, as our debut Sydney show. In fact, Alister's mum and little sister are coming up from Tasmania, so come and say Hi to them.

Australian music is?
The Australian Music industry is at least 100 times healthier than Australian films. Except for that one film about Australia - 'Australia', that one was epic.

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