From Drumline To Devotion, ÌFÉ's Otura Mun Strives For 'Something Higher'
<p>Otura Mun started out in the world as Mark Underwood, a Goshen, Ind., native whose parents were Mennonites and who managed to snag a coveted spot on the University of North Texas' drumline. But that was before a flight mixup landed the percussionist, composer, DJ and producer with a free trip to Puerto Rico. Two years later, he moved permanently to the island, became a Yoruban high priest and began creating electronic music that channeled the African diaspora.</p><p>These days, Otura Mun leads the Afro-Caribbean ensembleÌFÉ, whose debut album is calledIIII + IIII(pronounced "Edgy-Og-Beh"). He spoke withWeekend Edition Sundayguest host A Martínez about his remarkable story, the way his spirituality and music intersect and his myriad influences — from drumline to video games. Hear their conversation at the audio link, and read on for highlights.</p><p>On how playing with the UNT drumline shapes his music today</p><p>The University of North Texas had this monster drumline led by an instructor named Paul Rennick. Everybody who played in these private groups from all over the country would go to the University of North Texas and sort of beat up on other university drumlines. So when I came as a freshman ... it was one slot open and 250 people trying out for that one slot, and I ended up getting it. I was able to drum and win a national championship with the University of North Texas.</p><p>I think now, coming back to ÌFÉ, what you see is a bit of the same concept ... in the sense that playing in a drumline, you sort of become anonymous. You're playing and trying to synchronize with the drummers that are around you, playing together to be able to make a higher expression, or a larger expression happen as a whole. ... There's room for improvisation and there's room to express yourself. But it's a group experience that's making something higher happen.</p><p>On how he came to move to Puerto Rico, and the cultural adjustment that demanded</p><p>At the time I was studying at the University of North Texas, I would travel back and forth from there to Indiana, and in '97 Delta kind of bust one of my flights and they gave me a voucher. Being from a lower-middle class family, the idea of travel on my own dime just didn't really occur to me. And so all of a sudden I had this plane ticket that was good for anywhere in the U.S., the Caribbean and South America. At the time I was really getting into Jamaican dancehall. And so I sat on the tickets for 11 months, called the airline in '97 and said, "Hey, I wanna go to Jamaica." They sort of batted that one away and said the only places they went in the Caribbean were St. Thomas, St. Croix and Puerto Rico. St. Thomas, nope. St. Croix, nope. All booked up. Puerto Rico was the last thing open. And so I just jumped on it. I wanted to see what the Caribbean was about.</p><p>And I just really enjoyed the experience that I had there, culturally. I mean, being from Indiana and being African American, it's just — the U.S. is a tough place to be black, let's put it that way. ... The things that I assumed about my relationships with other people, how they saw me, how I should understand them, even before having a conversation — were sort of deconstructed in Puerto Rico to a certain extent. Because the folks there don't necessarily build their identity on race first, like we do in the States. ... I think I took the way that I moved through the world with me to Puerto Rico and sort of had to find another way to move.</p><p>On the connection he felt with the Yoruba religion</p><p>In '99 I was booked to DJ a sort of millennial party in St. Thomas. And one of the groups that was also booked was arumbagroup and most of therumberosthat were there weresanterosorpracticantesof the Yoruba religion. And then there was also a Nigerian drummer and dancer that was booked at the same party. ... And the Puerto Ricanrumbagroup and the Nigerian got along really well, musically, because the Puerto Ricans were singing in Yoruba, and the Nigerian spoke Yoruba and he could understand them completely. He was really kind of blown away. He said, "Hey, you guys have an accent that sounds like my great-great-grandfather." And as an African American, seeing these guys from Puerto Rico being able to communicate directly on a spiritual level, on a musical level, with someone from the continent in such a profound way, was just very impacting for me.</p><p>In this practice, the idea of praying without singing, or singing without dance, just doesn't really exist. I think that's kinda what people are feeling, in some ways, when they listen to the ÌFÉ record — there's that deep sense of spirituality imbued into the music in a way that whether you understand English, Spanish or Yoruba, you're going to get a sense of what we're trying to get across, because the meaning and intent behind the words and the chants are so powerful.</p><p>On what he brings to traditional Yoruba devotional singing</p><p>Many of the songs and chants that are on ÌFÉ's record came through meditations about the particularorishas[divinities that interface between humans and the supreme being] themselves. ... And I was lucky enough in the writing process to be befriended by a gentleman named Emilio Barreto, who's probably the most famous singer insanteríaceremonies in New York in the last 30 years. He just sort of walked into my studio randomly as I was writing the record. And so Emilio immediately sort of got what I was trying to do, on a musical end, with triggering these drums and reflecting on the energies of eachorisha.</p><p>"Bangah" is a good example because I had sampled a knife sound or a sword strike from the video gameAssassin's Creed. Now, Ogún is understood as the god of war in the Yoruba pantheon, and his main tools are the machete and the anvil. ... I wanted young kids to be able to identify or hear themselves in the sounds on the record, and so I chose new electronic sounds. ... So I took that sword strike — "Sha-keeng" — and hopefully kids are gonna get it. Now, Emilio heard it, and he heard it as the sound of Ogún's sword, which I meant it to be, but it also sounded like a word, which is "Bangah!" and that's part of a song for Ogún. And so he was able to help me get the song I needed, at the moment I needed it, into the music itself.</p><p>On debates surrounding cultural appropriation and the Yoruba faith</p><p>For me, race is another box, another source of confinement. I didn't choose to play that game. ... White Europeans are the winners in that game. They made it up, they defined it. And so I'm trying to shed those layers as much as possible, with all respect to the struggle that I'm a part of.</p><p>This is a practice that was waiting for me because of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but it's a practice that anyone can gain from. ... The practice is powerful for everyone. I'm nobody's judge and jury either, man. If my neighbor, who ended up being a crack addict — [who] was a white kid — was able to find peace and guidance inside of this religion, more power to him. I mean, I'm never gonna try and hold anybody back from evolving as a person, as a human being. No one's going to hold me back either.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF IFE SONG, "UMBO (COME DOWN)")</p><p>A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:</p><p>Otura Mun started out in the world as Mark Underwood. That was a long time ago back when the percussionist/composer/DJ/producer was a young member of the University of North Texas' drum line. Before he moved to Puerto Rico from Goshen, Ind., he became a Yoruban high priest and began creating electronic music that channeled the African Diaspora.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UMBO (COME DOWN)")</p><p>IFE: (Singing) May, may, may ire. May, may, may, ire.</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: Otura Mun leads the ensemble IFE. And their debut album "IIII+IIII" is now out. And he joins us now from the studios of the CBC in Montreal. Welcome to the program.</p><p>OTURA MUN: Hey, thanks for having me.</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: Now, we covered a lot of ground in that intro. So let's peel it back just a bit. Tell us about those days on the drum line.</p><p>MUN: Yeah. I mean, I grew up in Goshen, Ind. And I got really into drum and bugle corps, which is sort of this circuit that tours sort of the Midwest, some of the West Coast and East Coast as well. And the University of North Texas had this monster drum line that everybody that played in these private groups from all over the country would go to the University of North Texas and beat up on other University drum lines.</p><p>And so when I came there as a freshman, I already knew the names of everyone on the drum line because I had studied their styles and just sort of knew who they were. And so that first year, I guess, there was maybe one slot open and maybe 250 people trying out. And I ended up getting it and was able to drum and win the national championship with the University of North Texas.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF IFE SONG, "3 MUJERES (IBORU IBOYA IBOSHESHE)")</p><p>MUN: Playing on a drum line, you sort of become anonymous. You're playing and trying to synchronize with the drummers that are around you with playing together to be able to make a higher expression happen. There's room for improvisation. And there's room to express yourself. But it's a group experience.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "3 MUJERES (IBORU IBOYA IBOSHESHE)")</p><p>IFE: (Singing in foreign language).</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: Let me ask you this because I read that some of your earliest musical influences came from tapes that your father listened to on his Walkman. I remember Walkmans. I mean, no one that's any younger than 30 would remember what a Walkman is. But that's when he worked at a gas meter reader back in Indiana. What were some of those songs on that Walkman?</p><p>MUN: I mean, he gave me James Brown, like, you know, "I'm Black And I'm Proud." You know, Sly and The Family Stone, the greatest hits, that was one of the tapes that I remember really burning up. Bob Marley, Parliament Funkadelic - I mean, you know, he was just walking. He was on his feet all day. And so he would get a tape and sort of burn it out and, you know, shoot it my way, so.</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: Do you still have that Walkman by any chance?</p><p>MUN: I don't have the Walkman. But I do have a lot of those tapes.</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: Do you really? Wow.</p><p>MUN: Yeah, yeah.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF IFE SONG, "PRAYER FOR ODUDUWA (PARA MERCEDITAS)")</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: All right, so you're from Indiana. You go to Puerto Rico. Your parents - Mennonites. And you come to the Yoruba faith. How did that happen?</p><p>MUN: Well, in '99, I was booked to DJ, like, a sort of millennial party in St. Thomas. And one of the groups that was also booked was a rumba group, and most of the rumberos that were there were santeros or practicantes of the Yoruba religion. And so I was there with them. And then there was also a Nigerian drummer and dancer that was booked at the same party.</p><p>And the Puerto Rican rumba group and the Nigerian got along really well musically because the Puerto Ricans were singing in Yoruba. And the Nigerian spoke Yoruba. And he could understand them completely. And he was really kind of blown away. He said, hey, you guys have an accent that sounds like my great, great grandfather. And, you know, as an African-American seeing these guys from Puerto Rico be able to communicate directly on a spiritual level, on a musical level from someone from the continent in such a profound way was just very impacting for me.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PRAYER FOR ODUDUWA (PARA MERCEDITAS)")</p><p>IFE: (Singing in foreign language).</p><p>MUN: You know, in this practice, the idea of praying without singing or singing without dance just doesn't really exist. I think that's kind of what people are feeling in some ways when they listen to IFE's record. There is a deep sense of spirituality sort of - I'm not sure what the English word is - imbued maybe into the music in a way that whether you understand English, Spanish or Yoruba, you're going to get a sense of what we're trying to get across regardless because the meaning and the intent behind the words and the chants are so powerful.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF IFE SONG, "HOUSE OF LOVE (OGBE YEKUN)")</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: Tell us about the song "House Of Love." Is that right it helped you deal with the death of your brother?</p><p>MUN: One of the beautiful things about this practice is we commune with our ancestors on a daily basis, and we try to develop a give and receive sort of exchange with them. And so "House Of Love" is really just talking about that in a general level - the idea of our ancestors are with us after death and we can communicate with them and share from them and learn from them.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOUSE OF LOVE (OGBE YEKUN)")</p><p>IFE: (Singing in foreign language).</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: Now before you go, I got to ask this because we hear a lot of debate about cultural appropriation. Now, if you were a white drummer from Indiana who changed his life, went to Puerto Rico, ended up in the same place you are now, I know, I know people would have an issue with it. So why shouldn't we with you?</p><p>MUN: I mean, I don't think that I would have an issue with it. For me, race is another box, source of confinement. I didn't choose to play that game. White Europeans are the winners in that game. They made it up. They defined it. And so I'm trying to, you know, shed those layers as much as possible with all respect to the struggle that I'm a part of.</p><p>You know, this is a practice that was waiting for me because of the transatlantic slave trade. But it's a practice that anyone can gain from. You know, I'm nobody's judge and jury either. If, you know, my neighbor who ended up being a crack addict, which was a white kid, was able to find peace and guidance inside of this religion, more power to him. I mean, I'm never going to try and hold anybody back from evolving as a person, as a human being. And I - you know, no one is going to hold me back either.</p><p>MARTÍNEZ: That's Otura Mun of the band IFE. And their new album is called "IIII+IIII". Thanks so much for speaking with us.</p><p>MUN: Sure. Thanks man.</p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF IFE SONG, "YUMAVISION")</p><p><a href="https://ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/wesun/2017/07/20170709_wesun_from_drumline_to_devotion_fs_otura_mun_strives_for_something_higher.mp3?d=425&e=535846881&t=progseg&seg=8&p=10&sc=siteplayer&aw_0_1st.playerid=siteplayer">Listen to audio</a></p>