Bwatue
Encyclopedia
"Bwatue" is a song by Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...

, a U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 best known for the protest song
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...

s he wrote in the 1960s. He co-wrote the song with two African musicians named Dijiba and Bukasa. "Bwatue" was written and recorded in 1973.

"Bwatue" was written while Ochs was visiting Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

. Its lyrics are in Lingala
Lingala language
Lingala, or Ngala, is a Bantu language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo , as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic. It has over 10 million speakers...

. The title means "canoe"; the lyrics develop the river as a metaphor for life. "Bwatue" was released as a single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 in Africa by A&M Records
A&M Records
A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:...

. The B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...

 of the single, "Niko Mchumba Ngombe", also by Ochs, Dijiba, and Bukasa, was written in Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

. Both songs were recorded by Ochs with the Pan-African Ngembo Rumba Band. The record was a commercial failure.

"Bwatue" and "Niko Mchumba Ngombe" have been described as early examples of blending Western popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 with world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

, and critics note that they predate Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

's Graceland
Graceland (album)
Graceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in over a decade, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5× Platinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album...

by more than ten years. Still, one critic says the record "should be seen more as a curiosity rather than a serious attempt at exploring a new style". One of Ochs' biographers cynically suggests that Ochs recorded the songs in order to deduct
Tax deduction
Income tax systems generally allow a tax deduction, i.e., a reduction of the income subject to tax, for various items, especially expenses incurred to produce income. Often these deductions are subject to limitations or conditions...

 the cost of his trip to Africa from his income tax
Income tax in the United States
In the United States, a tax is imposed on income by the Federal, most states, and many local governments. The income tax is determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income as defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and...

 as a business expense.

In the early 1990s, the single was reissued in a limited edition of 1000 by Sparkle Records, ostensibly on behalf of the Phil Ochs Fan Club of Canada. The reissue was unauthorized and is considered a bootleg
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...

.

The only known review of the single was positive. Reviewing the bootleg release in Dirty Linen, Cliff Furnald wrote that "the band gives a superb look at the Zaire/Kenyan dance style at the time before mass marketing started the diluting downward trend".

Because of the single's limited release, "Bwatue" and "Niko Mchumba Ngombe" were extremely rare. Most Ochs fans never heard the songs before they were included in 1997's American Troubadour
American Troubadour
American Troubadour is a 1997 British 2-CD set that presented a portrait of singer-songwriter Phil Ochs' later career, featuring selections from each of the five albums he recorded for A&M Records, from various non-album single sides and from a performance Ochs gave on March 13, 1969, in Vancouver,...

. "Niko Mchumba Ngombe" was also included in the 2004 collection Cross My Heart: An Introduction to Phil Ochs
Cross My Heart: An Introduction to Phil Ochs
Cross My Heart: An Introduction to Phil Ochs is a British best-of compilation of the U.S. folk singer's A&M recordings. The CD features three tracks each from Pleasures Of The Harbor, Tape From California, and Rehearsals For Retirement as well as two from Greatest Hits and one from Gunfight At...

.
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