Mac McKenzie: Goema Captain of Cape Town

With his Goema-rhythm he became a world renowned artist. Jazz player Mac McKenzie added the magic Goema beat to a musical genre and created a whole new style in the process.

“It is gonna be ‘Lekker’ music”
Nowadays the 51-year old jazz musician and composer, is working on something new behind the scenes. He does not want to be in the limelight anymore. “I have been there, it was absolute heaven, but it is over now.” In his own words he is working on ‘the way forward’. “It is gonna be lekker music”, McKenzie says with a twinkle in his dark brown eyes and a big smile. “I have played the music, now it is time to give the creator, the composer in me, free space.”

‘Coloured’ Wild west
The couch in his small house in Bridgetown, one of the “coloured” suburbs of Cape Town, is fully covered with sheet music. “I want to refresh the classical pieces of the big composers such as Bach and Strauss. Of course with a Goema swing! It is here where he was born and raised and is now looking after his mother. Bridgetown was one of the first townships on the Cape Flats. Years ago this area was like a “coloured” wild west. There was violence everywhere and music was part of that violence. “We were fighting the Boere with our music.”

Goema
“ I always have to put a stamp on music. Goema is always with me. It is my luggage, my breath. In my younger years I gave a new twist to the cultural 'coloured' sound that I called Goema, based on the carnival music. Exactly as the Buena Vista Social Club did with Bossa Nova.

Sex, drugs and Rock ‘n roll
The 51-year old jazz musician and composer Mac McKenzie has said farewell to the life of ‘sex drugs and rock and roll’ he was used to in his home base Cape Town and every other place in the world where he could play the Goema-music with his former band, The Genuines.

Anywhere there was music to play, women to make love to, and alcohol and drugs to take, Mac McKenzie sang and played the bass. Since 1994 he changed his bass for the guitar. “I wanted to be able to play alone. I already knew I was not going to be in a band until the age of 80.” For years he practised, completely isolated. “But I knew that guitar playing was always in me”.

Composing genes
At the age of seven McKenzie wrote and played his first song. His father, one of the most extraordinary guitar and banjo players South Africa ever had, taught him how to play and sing. “For generations, composing music is in our family genes and that is my focus .”

Sexy, sexy, sexy music
With his band the Goema Captains of Cape Town, Mac McKenzie recently launched their debut album, Healing Destination. It is the first record out of 4 albums featuring the new Penthouse Goema. This smooth playboy music is the sophistication of the music of the carnival. Music for sunsets, music for romance. Sexy music.

To promote the vision captured on the Goema Captains’ debut Mac travelled to Germany, Holland and Switzerland in August 2003.

Come2capetown.com admits happily: Goema Captains are conquering the next generation.