Album Profile
Daai Man is a Kasie (township) music concept album, which contains songs that inspired Wadee when he was growing up. The album is packaged to cater for all listeners and has been categorised into four township music styles – Kasie jazz, Kasie fusion, Afrokasiejazz and Kasie vibe.
The 14-track instrumental album contains four songs with vocals –
Mara Why, Ipondo, Ke Lema Ke Le Nosi and Languta Tsotsi featuring the sultry and captivating voice of Queen Ranyama, a musician who has backed leading musicians in Vusi Mahlasela and Rebecca Malope among others.
The album follows in the heels of My Roots album released in September 2006, also a concept album which fuses the traditional sounds of the Bapedi people from Limpopo called dinaka and the modern jazz influences resulting in the concept called dinakajazz. Both albums are available at Reliable Music Warehouse, Jive City, Top Cd, Xarra Books, Absolute Jazzin, Just Cds and Universal Sounds in Windhoek, Namibia.
Although the album was released independently like the current one Daai Man, the response has been phenomenal with the album reaching the second spot on the Kaya Fm Kwv Jazz Top 10 and also led to invitations to perform live across the country.
Daai Man is the third offering by Wadee, after the release of his debut album Tsamaya Road in 1997 and My Roots in 2006.
Wadee is an Arabic name meaning calm and peaceful, and he was born in Modimolle previously known as Nylstroom in 1962 as Pat Ranoto.
His parents relocated to Mamelodi previously known as Vlakfontein in 1965 where Wadee matriculated at Vlakfontein High School (a local school) in 1980 and went on to train as a teacher at the Transvaal College of Education from 1982-1984. He taught for 11 years from 1985 to 1997 and left to pursue his passion for music on full-time basis.
In his formative years as a teenager, Wadee used to entertain his peers with songs played from self-made musical instruments and later developed the interest to help nurture talents of school children interested in music while performing his duties as a school teacher.
After quitting his job, Wadee worked on a project called school jam – a school music development project whose main objective was to record school groups onto compilation albums to encourage the learners not to leave school for instant fame. The project also helped the learners to realise their dreams of singing and performing in front of live audiences.
Wadee worked as a project coordinator at the Vusi Mahlasela Music Development Foundation from February 2001 to July 2007 and he has since left the organisation to concentrate on performing live and also forming a record label in order to record and promote local talent especially in the Tshwane area. The present album Daai Man is the first release from the newly established Tshwane Records label,
Performances
Wadee has performed live since 1997, gracing high profile festivals like the Joy of Jazz, Tribute to the Heroes Concerts, Oppikoppi and Vodacom Jazz Indaba among others.
My Roots is an enjoyable album from a talented artist who has been able to define his own inspiring style of music. His first album, Tsamaya Road was named after a long road in Mamelodi where he grew up after his family moved from Modimolle in Limpopo, where he was born.