Kotoko Brass, from left: Brian Paulding, Yusaku Yoshimura, Dillon Zahner, Kwame Ofori, M’Talewa Thomas, Ben Paulding, Attah Poku, Andy Bergman. (Photographed by Jenna Joyce.)
By Richard Clark
Kotoko Brass is an acclaimed multinational band performing October 10th at the Cape Cod Community College Waves of Change Arts Festival. On their debut album, “The Years of The Quiet Sun,” Kotoko created a joyful fusion of traditional Ghanaian rhythms, Caribbean grooves, and New Orleans-inspired horn melodies, in what the Boston Globe described as “propulsive, infectious party music.” Founded by brothers Ben and Brian Paulding, the ensemble brings together musicians from Ghana, Antigua, Japan, and the United States, celebrating tradition, diversity, and unity at the heart of their sound. Ahead of their upcoming performance, we sat down for a Q and A with founding members Ben and Brian Paulding—Cape Cod’s very own. They spoke to us about the cultural influences, musical traditions, and personal relationships that inform their art. Tickets are available now on the 4C’s website. See this article for more details about the Waves of Change Arts Festival and Kotoko’s performance.
You’re headlining the Waves of Change Arts Festival on October 10th. What can audiences expect from your upcoming performance?
Ben: For our performance on October 10th, what you’re gonna really hear is an original style of music that is all inspired by the traditional drumming and dancing of Ghana, West Africa. So the band has roots in the traditional music of Ghana, but blends that together with sounds from the Caribbean, American style music…like, we got reggae…we have jazz…we have all different styles that are blended together but rooted in the traditional percussive music of West Africa, and this represents the people who are in the band as we have folks in the band from Ghana and the Caribbean. Specifically from Antigua, from Japan, and from here in the United States.
That comes through a lot in your sound, a lot of the old traditional drumming, like the Kete dance music, the Caribbean drum and bass, its blended with a lot of modern sounds. What is it like in the studio finding a balance between traditional drum music and more modern pop or jazz music?
Brian: You know, that blend is really a product of the musicians that we have. It usually feels really natural and seamless to find that blend. We’re lucky that we really trust our bandmates and our friends to all bring something special to it. You know, we have people that are experts in soca music and reggae music and in different styles of West African music so it comes pretty naturally, and those moments where the drums are most firmly rooted in that traditional style they’re often unaccompanied so it’s pretty true to its roots in those moments.
Attah and Kwame…their drumming is incredible. I want to ask: Ben, I know you studied and spent a lot of time teaching and studying in Ghana. What were your biggest takeaways from living there?
Ben: Oh wow, that’s a deep question. So yeah, I got introduced to the music and dance of Ghana when I was at UMass Dartmouth as a music major and got the chance to, like, study abroad several times in Ghana while I was in undergrad there. I just fell in love with it so by the time that I graduated, I worked for a while, saved up money and moved there. Really some of the main things that I took away were that one, in my own personal opinion, the drumming music of West Africa is the pinnacle of the art form so, like, in terms of percussion and drumming to me some of the most sophisticated complex deep artistic drumming music that happens in the world is from West Africa. I think among musicians it’s pretty well known that the history of rhythm and drumming in American music is very, very, very traceable to West Africa specifically. So many rhythms that came into American music come from Africa, but I think people are less aware of the fact that it’s still where it’s going on to this day. Another big takeaway to me was really that music is part of something bigger, so it’s not just like drumming for drumming’s sake. There are specific and certain rhythms that are played at funerals, rhythms that are played at weddings, rhythms that are played at the Chief’s Palace and there’s a time and place for each one of these, so each one of these things that we would think of as drumming or music is really a part of culture. It’s part of something that’s bigger and, you know, maybe the last one I’ll use for now, is that music is something that people do together…it’s something that’s community based. I’m not saying there aren’t specialists in music, ’cause there certainly are…not everybody plays, but it’s all about the ensemble. It’s all about playing with groups of people. Contrast that with like, you know, conservatory style music here which there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s a beautiful tradition in its own, but where it’s encouraged for players to spend three or four hours in the practice room by themselves working on their individual part. The difficulty of West African music is actually more in the relationships of having seven percussion parts that have to be synced up like the microsecond with each other all in real time and if one person goes off it can disrupt the balance, so it’s about everybody being able to listen to, like, multiple parts simultaneously and find their place within that bigger whole.
That’s a beautiful answer. When was the first time you heard either Kwame or Attah drumming, or West African drumming in general? What was your introduction to that?
Ben: The first time I ever heard West African drumming was kind of by accident. So, Brian and I both grew up on Cape Cod. I grew up taking drum lessons with Phil Vita and Jack’s Drum Shop and I remember there was a time around my senior year of high school where Phil had a couple medical things come up. He needed to take a break for a couple months. I studied with Martin Vasquez who’s also based in Hyannis and B Drum Shop, and then he actually had to miss a lesson and had a sub. His name is Mark Ivers, and Mark is a Cape Cod based drummer. He had also gone to UMass Dartmouth and he turned me onto this book called “West African Rhythms for Drumset,” which is written by Royal Hartigan, and that book was really like my initial introduction to music of West Africa and I remember thinking, like, oh my God, this is the most complicated yet beautiful thing I’ve ever heard…this is so incredible. That book is actually what made me go to UMass Dartmouth, and, like, led to this whole trajectory of West African music. I came in touch with playing later around 2011. I had written a paper on Kete that I was gonna be presenting at the University of Ghana. I had done a little bit of, like, introductory study and one other trip to Ghana, but I was looking for, like, okay, who is the authoritative source on Kete drum that I can go to for studying deeply, and a professor by the name of David Lockett connected me through a professor at University of Michigan to Attah, and I was living in Montagna at that time so I traveled to Kumasi to study with him. So, my first time really hearing it was in 2011 in person in Kumasi.
Wow, jumping from one beautiful instrument to another. I want to talk about Yusaku’s keyboard for a little bit. He really stands out whenever he makes an appearance, especially on “Abomey.” I keep going back to it because it’s almost like a progressive rock song. It’s so big and it gets so grand. What made you think of bringing him in on keyboard when forming the ensemble?
Brian: Oh man, I can take this on. It was a no-brainer. So, Ben and I had these conversations about starting a band casually over the years, and then one time I was hanging out at his apartment and Ben said: “Hey, you know that band that we’ve talked about for years?” Yeah, kind of…we hadn’t written any music or anything. He said: “Cool, I got a gig!” That’s wild, we don’t have anything, we don’t even have a band…he was like: “Yeah, I got two drummers, like, Ben…there’s more in this band that we’ve talked about then just drums.” But Ben loves drums. So then we’re like: “Well, we’ve got to call people.” So we kind of talk for a second about what we thought the right instruments to have would be, you know bass obviously with Tali, and then two horns, and I play trombone, and then I wanted a saxophone, and then we needed something to play the chords…and so I figured keyboard is very versatile. They can do a lot of different things. I had known Yusaku through the years from playing a bunch of different reggae bands with him. I grew up playing on the Cape in a reggae band called Shango-ax. We’d bring Yusaku down from Boston for a time to sub on keys and he’s just…we call him “The Maestro.” Everyone around town calls him The Maestro because everything he plays is somehow, like, perfectly appropriate all the time…and when he needs to take up a lot of space he does, and when he needs to just support he does, and he’s kind of like that as a human and a friend too. He’s just so reliable for whatever you need and so, to me, it was just obvious that he’d be my first call. So we’re sitting in Ben’s apartment, and I called him and he was just like: “Yeah, dude.”
Hearing Ben talk about community and hearing each of you guys talk about the different band members, it’s really clear how important the ensemble of the band is, and it comes through in the sound. What do you think makes the collaboration work so well between you guys?
Brian: Well, I can take it then you can take it Ben, ’cause we might have different answers. But to me, it’s kind of a couple different things. Everyone gets along, you know I mean? We all got our things sometimes, but we all get along. I think in some way the bassist is kind of like the understated linchpin to all of it ’cause everyone looks up to him. He’s like a father figure to a lot of us. I know he is to me. I guess I can only speak for myself. I think it’s partially that, it’s the music. This music is deep and it’s beautiful musically but also kind of, like, I don’t know…spiritually seems corny, but really it kind of feels that way to me and people regularly clear time and busy schedules to make room for this band because it’s always fun. The music is always great, and the audience…they’re always really receptive and eager to hear it, so it’s kind of like everything you want out of a gig.
Ben: I would just add, one thing that helps it all come together is so many of the styles that we all play all kind of have some connection to African music. So whether it’s, like, Attah or Kwame, who are playing, like, straight up Ashanti drums from Africa or, you know, what I’m doing on drum that is often times like an adaptation of Ghanaian rhythms to the drum set…but then there’s like, you know, Brian and Yusaku and Tali in particular have spent so much time studying and performing reggae music. Like, they toured all over the world with various reggae acts, and you know reggae has such a strong African connection that there’s automatically a link there and, like, to the point where when we brought the whole band to Ghana back in 2023 Tali was like: immediately I’m home like I feel completely at home here I feel so much, like I feel so comfortable, I feel so at home. And then our guitarist is Dillon who we haven’t talked about too much, yet Dillon has also kind of spent a lifetime studying African music and he’s been really immersed in, like, the Munda tradition of Jimbe and guitar playing from Mali, Senegal, and Guinea. He’s got a lot of other African traditions that he brings into the band too, which can kind of help give it this is sort of, like, continental African sound…maybe drawing in some additional sounds to our palette beyond just Ghana, which is kind of what’s at the core of it.
You guys have stated: “Our music is a celebration of tradition, diversity, and unity.” I feel like that’s super resonant in your music. All over “The Years of the Quiet Sun” I would catch myself falling in love with one sound…like Dillon’s opening guitar on Monarch, only to get surrounded by these horns and these drums and it’s like…I’m in this big colorful world. You have a little bit already, but can you speak on how having such a diverse musical and cultural palette in your band affects the music you guys make?
Ben: You know, it comes out with one of the strong points of “The Years of the Quiet Sun.” So many different members in the band composed songs on that album, which I think was really unique about it. It wasn’t all just, like, one person’s vision that, like, other people helped out with, it was really a collective and a lot of different people provided starting points. For example, a song like “Monarch.” I wrote the end of that, like, the fast double time part and that was inspired by Haitian Rara music and these horns they play in Haiti that sound a lot like the ivory tusk horns that are played in Ghana. The horns, they have this really close combination of those cultures sonically. I wrote that fast part, but it was only like a minute long and I was like: “I have no idea what to do with this.” I sent it to Brian, like: “Hey, what do you think? Do you have any ideas for this?” And then he just had this whole other vision of this, like, Latin inspired like…Montuno type baseline and, you know, bringing in this really nice horn line to it. I was like: “Wow, I would’ve never myself imagined going there, and then I love it.” I love that having that happen you know, same thing with other songs. Dillon wrote “Monarch.” He brought that, that was his creation. And, you know, Andy doing “Down From the South.” Mickey wrote “Yele.” Mickey actually taught himself how to notate music to bring that to the band. Oh, Mickey is Kwame…that’s his other name. So, Kwame comes from an oral music tradition where everything is played and learned by ear and he wanted to write “Yele” and bring it to the band. He actually taught himself how to notate music so we can write it out for people.
That’s incredible. Before we wrap this up, I need to ask about November 21st. You guys are performing and releasing a new album with Mohammed Alidu at the Crystal Ballroom in Somerville. What can you tell us about that?
Brian: Oh man, that’s going to be a fun one. Mohammed is a friend of ours who lives in the north of Ghana in a city called Tamale, and when we did our tour of Ghana we stayed with him for a week. He ran the festival up there called Playing for Change Festival, he traveled all around the world with the Playing for Change organization. When we were hanging out on his floor late at night chatting, we kind of messed around and we were his backing band there playing songs that he had written with other people and performed with other bands, and we thought we should write some together, and so it just kind of took off where he’d send us a voice memo of him singing a song, you know, unaccompanied, and we start to figure out what that song could look like with our instrumentation…and sent it back and forth, and over the course of a year or so came up with this four song album that we’re really excited about. It should be a great show we’re going to perform with him. We have some background singers, some dancers coming in from New York. It’s going to be a great party, and then we’re bringing it to Vermont, Maine, and New York City, and all around it’s going to be a really good time. And we’ll play a couple new instrumental Kotoko songs too.
Thanks again for this interview, this is awesome.
Brian: It’s a pleasure. Thanks for taking the time.
Ben: Of course, it’s a pleasure…and since you brought up Yusaku’s keyboard solo on “Abomey,” I’ll just give a little bit of trivia about that solo. That solo that he played was actually recorded in his hotel room in Japan during Covid. Yeah, originally that was for the demo and everything else got recorded over from the demo, but we had become so attached to the solo and we liked it so much we’re like: “Wait, why is he gonna record a new solo? Like, this one’s perfect…let’s just keep the one from the demo.” So that was his DIY home recording from his hotel in Japan during Covid.
Oh my God, I’m so glad you guys kept that.
Brian: That’s why we call him The Maestro, first take on everything with that kid.
