Sound of Boney M concert for Nairobi

The magic of one of the best-known bands the 1970s era of pop and disco music will come alive Saturday at a concert in Nairobi.

The Sound of Boney M is one of a number of groups associated with former members of the legendary band that travel the world performing the memorable disco hits from years gone by.

World of disco

Led by singer Sheyla Bonnick, The Sound of Boney M will perform at the Safari Park Hotel on Saturday September 5 from 7 pm.

Born in Jamaica and brought up in England, Bonnick together with Maizie Williams, Claudja Barry and a dancer only known as “Mike” were part of the very first line up of Boney M.

German producer Frank Farian had recorded a song called “Baby Do You Wanna Bump” but wanted a group of performers to appear on TV, discotheques and other public shows. This was how Boney M was formed.

Bonnick left the band soon after because she felt that it was not making any progress and Barry soon followed her out of the group.

Their replacements were Marcia Barrett, Bobby Farrell and Liz Mitchell while Williams was the only one who remained from the original Boney M.

It is this formation that went on to dominate the world of disco and pop from the late 1970s right into the next decade. Thousands of Kenyan fans packed the Kenyatta International Conference Centre to watch the band perform in Nairobi in 1978.

Bonnick admits to some regrets about the decision to leave what was about to become the biggest pop group in the world but says she is philosophical enough to accept everything as fate.

Boney M was the first Western group to perform in the former Soviet Union when they were invited there in 1979 and there were rumours that Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was a fan of their music.

(In a tragic twist, Farrell who sometimes dressed as Russian healer Rasputin during Boney M shows died in the Russian city of St. Petersburg in 2010).

After her short stint with Boney M, Bonnick had a few chart hits with a German tap dancing/singing band, Mandrake, before recording some solo projects including a disco cover of “Proud Mary” produced by Dietmar Kawohl, who also worked with Boney M and released on the group’s record label Hansa International.

Boney M officially disbanded in 1986 and since then, each member of the group has gone out on the concert circuit performing songs from that very successful catalogue.

Bonnick went on tour with Bobby Farrell’s Boney M formation in 1991 and three years later, reunited with her old friend Maizie Williams to start another version of Boney M performing in many parts of the world over the next decade. Eventually, she formed her own group, the Sound of Boney M, performing the famous songs in her own inimitable style.

“I never really intended to start my own version of the band but I was enticed into it by the many agents who approached me on the subject and after a while, I bought into the idea,” she says.

Nostalgia

Bonnick, who speaks English, German, Spanish, French, Danish and Russian says her experience performing around the world is that many of the older fans turn up to experience the nostalgia of their younger days but the group refreshes some songs with rap and trendy beats to keep younger fans entertained too.

“Traveling around the world brings joy but it’s an extra bonus to discover the knowledge and appreciation of Boney M’s music in all the different countries,” she said during this interview last week.

The group’s music set consists of all Boney M hits like “Rivers of Babylon”, “Daddy Cool”, “Brown Girl in the Ring”, “Hooray it’s a Holiday”, “Sunny”, “Rasputin” and “Kalimba de Luna”. Bonnick says they have also included African songs like “Pata Pata” as a way respect and a thank you gesture for the invitation to perform in Kenya.

She will also be performing songs from her new album “Look Beyond” which has been recorded in a new genre called Matzar.

Songwriter

Bonnick will travel to Nairobi along with two background vocalists and a male performer. Angela Anuforo, a Nigerian singer who also performs her own shows mainly for charity; Maya Chewaluza is half-Zimbabwean half-Austrian and lives in Spain while Noel Masco is a songwriter who is a product of music theatre school.

If you enjoyed “Mama Mia”, a show by the Abba Reunion Tribute Band earlier this year, then the Sound of Boney M will be another experience of the best pop and disco from the same era.

The Nairobi concert is organised by Entwined Media, the same promotions company that brought the Abba show to Kenya at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel in March.

A seat ticket for the concert at the Safari Park Hotel costs Sh6,000 while a VIP table of 10 goes for Sh150,000 and VVIP of 10, Sh175,000.