One way instrumentalists worldwide manage to be marketable is by having a distinct style and sound which is easily recognizable. This does not mean being monotonous by playing the same melody lines every time one plays, but having a style that one can tell who is playing. No one can fail to recognize who is on guitar when Carlos Santana is on guitar, whether it’s on Salif Keita’s song Jetaime, or when he collaborated with Reggae artists or on his music, the same can be said on Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix or any of those iconic instrumentalists, in fact, Carlos Santana once said that as soon as he plays just a single note, he wants you to recognize he is on guitar.

No one became an icon by using a borrowed style, no matter how good they are, borrowed styles do not produce icons and legends, a borrowed sound produces a musician who is second best to the one they are copying. I used to wonder why so many excellent musicians on YouTube never made it past YouTube, one of the main reasons is the lack of a distinct sound.

On a Marcus Miller bass master class streamed live on YouTube on 25 June 2019 Marcus Miller stressed the need for every musician to have his own distinct recognizable style. He even took time demonstrating different famous bass players’ signature licks, techniques, and styles in general and you could hear how different their styles were.

Together with his friend Omar Hakim who was a drummer & his classmate they formed a band. They used to listen to a lot of artists lot seeking inspiration, then one day Omar said to Marcus Miller, “We are not going to listen to any other players anymore because we have to find our own sound”, Marcus Miller said it was because they sounded like everybody, but did not have their own unique sound as individuals and even as a band, he further explained that if you are a high school musician you can play like Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius or any other great musician and its very impressive to everybody, but you cannot make it in the real music field, so Omar told Marcus Miller ” we are not going to be in high school forever”, which explains what I wrote in my book “Poor & famous”, that copying or mimicking another musician works very well on a small scale like at school, birthday parties and even at talent shows, but when you want to really go large scale, into the real music industry it’s the worst recipe ever.

Marcus Miller explained how he realized that every time he heard other musicians play from afar he could tell who was playing simply because of how the musicians had a distinct own style, now in Zimbabwe I heard a number of people discourage musicians from having a distinct style,

When my name first became known on the Zimbabwean music market as a session guitarist in the ‘90s i remember some people criticizing me for sounding like me, not knowing that It was always my prayer that my guitar style be identified as mine, not as someone’s style and i thank God because this is exactly what happened. The late great guitarist and idol of mine Jonah Sithole played a lot for the icon Thomas Mapfumo & helped shape the Chimurenga sub-genre, his guitar style was recognizable, but it sort of became Mukanya’s signature sound since Jonah Sithole contributed a lot to the Blacks unlimited sound, the unfortunate end result was that every time one heard a Jonah Sithole guitar intro they would say “That’s Thomas Mapfumo”.

The same happened to another great but under-celebrated guitarist Bizerk, he helped shape Leonard Zhakata’s Zora sub-genre sound a lot, and his guitar style is so unique, but sadly it also became associated with Leonard Zhakata to the extent that every time he played on anybody’s music people would sort of thinking it was a Zhakata song, It also happened to Philani Dube, who served for a long time at Oliver Mtukudzi’s band. This can negatively affect the guitarist when he wants to do session work for other artists and it’s one thing I wanted to avoid, thank God I recorded with so many different artists the same period of time for my style to be associated with a single artist, even though I could adapt easily in any artist’s style, you could still tell it’s me on guitar.

Even as an artist or singer, being different is a huge selling trick, but It’s very sad when I notice how many newcomers in the Zimbabwean music industry want to use a strategy that has one of the biggest failures in the game, which is copying another artist to the extent of sounding exactly like him or her. That strategy has failed again and again but a lot of newcomers continue to apply it to gain entry into the industry. On the contrary, It has been proven throughout popular music history Worldwide that one of the biggest selling points in the music industry, one of the most effective ways that will get you noticed easily is being different.

I was watching a YouTube documentary when In 2016 Pharrell Williams was invited to NYU Clive Davis institute & he was asked to listen to students’ demos and give comments and advice, as the demos were played one by one all other students’ music sounded like someone else, some sounded like Jay Zee, some like Beyoncé, etc., But Pharrell was captivated by a student named Maggie who had a totally different sound & approach when he got to Maggie’s demo his demeanor changed & he had this to say:

“I want to hear something & ask “who is that”& you can’t do that when everything sounds like the cousin of something else or everything else”

Turning to Maggie he said to her ”I’ve zero notes for your music because you are doing your own thing, you can’t compare it to anybody, you can’t judge it, it’s just like when The Wu-Tang Clan came, you either liked it or not, but you couldn’t compare it to anything else, that’s a special quality & all of us possess it, I can hear your whole story in your music, I have never heard anyone who sounds like you & that’s a drug for me. I love singer-songwriters, they are the best for me. Everybody has the ability to create something new, you have to be willing to use elements that are not popular. You can hear something you have heard before but not used in this way”…

That was a powerful comment, what he was simply saying is that nothing sells in the music industry more than being different.

When Zimbabwean Sungura musician Alick Macheso came on the scene he caught everybody‘s attention simply because he had a very unique way of playing the Sungura bass by using a plectrum for picking the strings when the majority was using Sungura fingerstyle, he also had a very captivating stage work and stage presence that no one had seen before, his vocal technique was also fresh and well-executed, his whole package was so fresh & new.

Of course, since he was part of Khiama boys you could feel some Khiama elements but the delivery was so unique and different from what everybody was used to, he was not the first to take a bass solo on a Sungura song as opposed to the usual rhythm guitar solo, but he did it so uniquely that everybody was amused. I watched a couple of shows when he was still part of khiama boys during the 90s, you could tell that this guy was on fire but he was holding back trying not to outshine his boss, as forbidden by the 48 laws of power, although he was basically the band’s bass player, he would capture the attention of the audience and shift the audience‘s attention from the bandleader to him, so when he finally broke loose he came with a bang, even those who hated Sungura music started loving it up to today he still has a large following even when he does not have a big hit on the market.

As his popularity grew within a few years there were dozens of Macheso copycats, some who copied even his lisp.Macheso then incorporated the use of a chanter, a style that he borrowed from Congolese Rhumba, named Jonas Kasamba, who has a Shona accent that is very different, as a result, a lot of the artists that copied him also had their own Jonas Kasambas who faked the broken Shona accent to complete the Macheso package. Did you ever take time to notice that none of them got anywhere?, some became one-hit wonders, some never even produced a single hit,& all of them simply disappeared why?..it’s simply because they were giving us a Macheso sound that we had already, it would tickle our ears for a moment but as soon as the one you are copying releases a new album we all flock back to him, that’s the dangers of being a copycat, you will never beat the one you are copying, you will always be second best.

The same thing happened to Charles Charamba, there were many Charles Charambas in the gospel music circles, some who sounded like Charamba more than the real Charamba, but where are they now?. One artist who has been copied a lot too is Jah Prayser, I remember telling a young artist to go back and try to get rid of Mukudzei Mukombe traits in his vocal style but when he came back he was even worse.

The funny thing with Zimbabwean copycats is how furious they become when you mention that they are copying someone‘s style, I remember one saying he was not copying Macheso, he was simply playing Sungura, but how come Leonard Dembo, John Chibadura,Pengaudzoke, System Tazvida, etc never sounded like Macheso but they played Sungura too?.

Written by Clive “Mono” Mukundu

Zimbabwean guitarist, author, and music producer