He's making music for two continents

By Dan Hilborn
Published June 19, 2004



One of the most storied musicians to call Burnaby home will be on stage at The Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver later this month to join in a celebration of African music.

Kow Kanda, an African pop fusion band led by Burnaby resident Ronald Garber, will share the spotlight on June 27 with internationally acclaimed recording artist Johnny Clegg Band performing with Savuka and Jaluka.

"I consider myself a different kind of performer," said Garber. "I'm not dancing around on stage like a bushman who paints his face. I make a different kind of music - music that reaches all people, so that they will understand Africa.

"I want to be a universal singer."

Kow Kanda specializes in music that fuses tribal African beats and rhythms with North American pop influences. It is a musical style Garber first discovered in Freetown, the troubled capital city of Sierre Leone, a diamond-rich country in west Africa, where Garber was taught how to sing by his grandmother.

"We sang a lot of American music and a little bit of traditional music. I was not a big traditional music lover," he admits. "From then on, this is what I wanted to do."

The name of his group, Kow Kanda, was given to Garber by his grandfather.

"When I was very young, my grandfather said 'You are Kow Kanda.' That is someone who is tough, but who knows what they want," Garber said. "It is a positive name. It also means if someone wants to see your downfall, they will have to fight you very hard."

And Garber has fought hard to make his singing pay off.

The June 27 show will present some of the tunes from Kow Kanda's first CD, Blind Faith, recorded in Ghana in 1999 plus those he's hoping to include on a new CD, which he plans to release later this year.

While he has called Canada home for the past 20 years, Garber has been fortunate to travel around the world and discover a wide variety of music styles.

His influences include South Africa's Miriam Makeba, Fela from Nigeria, clean-cut reggae star Jimmy Cliff and even the great American jazz songstress Sarah Vaughn. "I've seen her five times in my life," he says with an undeniable tone of reverence in his voice.

In the six years since Garber began performing in Vancouver, he has released his own CD and recorded songs for two different editions of the 96.1 World Beat CDs, which showcase the top world beat bands in the Lower Mainland.

He has travelled extensively and played in Toronto, Detroit, and in Europe. This summer, he will return to Africa to record music for his new CD.

"The new CD is going to be 70 per cent Afro Funk with one or two ballads thrown in," Garber said. "It is a fusion sound, from the old world into the new."

His manager, Eric Vijfhuizen, said the audience always goes "absolutely wild" at his shows, and the group offers a 'money back' guarantee to the promoters of its shows.

"If the band does not have the audience screaming for more, we play for free," Vijfhuizen said. "The result? We get paid, with a request to return next time."

Kow Kanda will open for the Johnny Clegg Band with Savuka and Jaluka at 8 p.m., Sunday, June 27 at The Centre for Performing Arts, 777 Homer St., Vancouver. Tickets are $30 and $35 through Ticketmaster.