Songbroker Song of the Day: Myele Manzanza - Itaru's Phone Booth

 The son of a Congolese master percussionist, born and raised in NZ listening to hip hop, jazz and dance music, as an artist Myele Manzanza brings an eclectic style and diverse skill to his craft to create a genre bending experience rooted in jazz and African rhythm. 

This time last year, Manzanza released his eagerly anticipated third album A Love Requited on First Word Records UK. Produced with Australian musical collaborator Ross McHenry, ‘ALR’ is as much a musical journey as it is an attempt to process, work through and come to terms with the life around him.

Itaru’s Phone Booth is a stand out track and was inspired by melancholic real life events. As Manzanza explains…

“I was listening to a podcast about a man in a small Japanese town called Itaru, who had installed an old English style phone booth on his property, not connected to any phone line, as a place he could go and “talk” to deceased loved ones. The town was almost totally ruined by the tsunami & earthquakes that rocked Japan in 2011 and as time went on his phone booth became a place where people could go to talk to their loved ones that passed away. Some of it was kids telling their deceased parents about how they made the soccer team or that they’ve been diligent with their home work, and other times it was adults struggling to communicate complicated feelings to their husbands or wives that were taken away suddenly….I thought the story of the phone booth was a beautiful poetic image to tie those ideas together, and the piece was very much inspired by that.”

Musically, Itaru’s Phone Booth is a blend of hip hop & dance rhythms, the fluidity of modern jazz, & arrangements drawing from soulful hard bop & the big band tradition.

Listen here: