This week and the previous one my productivity at work hit an all-time low, and of course I’ll explain why. But first things first. So low has my story-churning rate been this past fortnight, I was forced to recall to mind a word that Isabella, the Human Resource Manager here at The New Times always deploys whenever she meets staff. That word is “burn-out”. The HR always uses it when advising staff to take advantage of their God-given right to a few days or weeks of leave from work every year. So she tells those members of staff who suffer from “burn-out” to go to her office and pick leave application forms, fill them in, return them, and walk away with your two weeks of leave. The arrival of the term ‘burn-out’ at this particular point in time is very timely. Timely because I know it for a fact that at least 86% of oppressed and overworked corporate workers of the world do not know the right term to use when attempting to show cause for work leave. So bad and so serious and so embarrassing is this situation that, whenever most people are asked why they want to go on leave, all they will know to tell you is that it’s because they’re “stressed”. As you can see, this is one of those unusually and needlessly lengthy intros. Which is not to say we shall now shy away from the subject at hand, well summarized in the very opening line. The reason I have been scarce in the news room of late is because I’ve been in studio voicing. So what became of my usual planned weekend and late night studio sessions that never used to interfere with my other work as a journo? There is only one probable explanation, that explanation being that music is a drug. You heard it. Music, at its very best, is a narcotic, in the same league as the narcotics that the Rwanda National Police’s Canine Brigade is charged with busting. So music is a drug. And drugs are addictive. As for my case, I have two suppliers for this drug: My DJ and my producer. When I hit the recording booth at Level 9 Records deep in Gatsata, my producer, Jimmy Pro dashed to the soundcard, switched the mic on and asked me in a loud voice what I was here to do. I promptly shot back that it was to make ‘a big tune’. That was when the musical lessons that I wasn’t prepared for begun. Jimmy Pro told me that I was here to make a “big chune”, not “tune”. He promptly followed this by educating me that music is in itself a language and not to be confused with the language we use in mundane day-to-day speech. With that out of the way, it was now time for my music recording session proper. And that’s a story for another day and another pay cheque …
