Co-founder Chris White:

“Samaki was formed a few year’s ago. I went around getting like minded musicians together and the rest is history. I have fond memories of playing songs from the afrobeat lexicon at school in New Zealand where I grew up. One day there, an English band called Moire Music fronted by Trevor Watts visited our school and introduced us kids to the world of afrojazz. Something I’d never forgotten and it was a huge influence on me musically. Just a few decades later I found myself living in Hastings and discovered that Trevor actually lived there. It seemed like a sign. Samaki is the Swahili word for fish. As we’re Hastings based we wanted there to be some sort of reference to our geographic location. If we were asked to sum up our sound in just three words we would say: Soaring Melodic Groove.

Some of our influences include Fela Kuti, Tony Allen and Oscar Sulley. They are intrinsically part of the genre of music we call afrobeat. If you perform their tunes or perform like them stylistically, you’re in a way carrying on their musical legacy. It’s unavoidable. We play a Fela Kuti song in our set – Water Get No Enemy, and it’s in this song that it becomes obvious that the combination of relentless groove and highly melodic hooks make afrobeat what it is.

We have a three piece horn section, myself on tenor sax, Rob Leake on baritone sax and Joe Auckland on trumpet. Rob is a Hastings stalwart of the live music scene and an amazing saxophonist. Joe plays trumpet with Madness and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, as well as being a seasoned banjo player. I was performer and arranger with Van Morrison for many years and now spend a lot of time writing music for film and television. On drums we have Evan Jenkins, a very busy musician and a fellow New Zealander who regularly records and tours with Ben Watt, Seth Lakeman and Matt Schofield. Jim Board is our guitarist and like Rob, is regularly heard around the vibrant Hastings live music scene, as well as recording with artists such as Robbie Williams. James Davison from Mike Willis band is on bass and Julian Humphries is our percussionist.”