Second Zebra spoke to Chris White of Samaki Afrobeat:  

Samaki was formed a year and half ago. Living in Hastings as a musician, it’s impossible to ignore how much people love music here and how eclectic the live scene is genre wise. It seemed right that there should be an afrobeat group added to the local lineup of bands. With that in mind I went around getting like minded musicians together and the rest is history. I have fond memories of playing songs from the afrobeat lexicon at school in New Zealand where I grew up. One day there, an English band called Moire Music fronted by Trevor Watts visited our school and introduced us kids to the world of afrojazz. Something I’d never forgotten and it was a huge influence on me musically. Just a few decades later I found myself living in Hastings and discovered that Trevor actually lived there. It seemed like a sign. Samaki is the Swahili word for fish. As we’re Hastings based we wanted there to be some sort of reference to our geographic location. If we were asked to sum up our sound in just three words we would say: Soaring Melodic Groove

 Some of our influences include Fela Kuti, Tony Allen and Oscar Sulley. They are
intrinsically part of the genre of music we call afrobeat. If you perform their tunes or perform like them stylistically, you’re in a way carrying on their musical legacy. It’s unavoidable. We play a Fela Kuti song in our set – Water Get No Enemy, and it’s in this song that it becomes obvious that the combination of relentless groove and highly melodic hooks make afrobeat what it is.
 
We have a 3 piece horn section, myself on tenor sax, Rob Leake on baritone sax and Joe Auckland on trumpet. Rob is a Hastings stalwart of the live music scene and an amazing saxophonist. Joe plays trumpet with Madness and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, as well as being a seasoned banjo player. I was performer and arranger with Van Morrison for many years and now spend a lot of time writing music for film and television. On drums we have Evan Jenkins, a very busy musician and a fellow New Zealander who regularly records and tours with Ben Watt, Seth Lakeman and Matt Schofield. Jim Board is our guitarist and like Rob, is regularly heard around the vibrant Hastings live music scene, as well as recording with artists such as Robbie Williams. James Davison from Mike Willis band is on bass and Julian Humphries is our percussionist.
 
I’m really pleased that over the last year and a half we’ve come to that point at which we can say the line-up is right. Fundamentally I think we all enjoy performing with each other and that comes across to the audience. We are very delighted by the response to our music. It’s such a great feeling playing to people who make their enjoyment felt. A lot of people are saying they want to hear more! We’re constantly recording and regularly have new tracks available to stream or purchase. Spotify has our complete catalogue available so people can hear us again and again if they like. There’s also a YouTube channel if
anyone feels like watching films of us performing. Our most recent show was at Marina Fountain and it was was fantastic. Jess and Michael, the pub owners, have long been supporters of Samaki so we had such a warm welcome there. People had a good time! We’ll be playing there again in May.