eureka! moments

March 24, 2007. It feels like I have been in San Francisco for only a few days, but I have actually been here for two weeks. That is a long time considering that two weeks is actually half of a month. When I stop to think about what I have achieved in those two weeks, I have to say probably a lot, but then I realize that I am here for only about two months, and I feel like I should have made more progress.

If there is one thing that I am learning from this fieldwork experience, it is that you can never really measure your progress in terms of how much activity you pack into each day, but how significant those activities are to your research goals. Every experience in the field is valuable no matter how far removed they seem to be from your purpose, but not all those experiences can answer definitively the questions you set out to find answers to when you entered the field. Because the field is like San Francisco weather—unpredictable, you never know when those sunny moments of revelation will occur. When they do occur, however, they are so gratifying, so golden, so eureka!

Sometimes you will get your eureka moments right at the beginning of your adventure, and afterwards they might be replicated over and over (which ironically could lead to stress ultimately diminishing productivity). At other times, being in the field can be like an expedition to a parched dessert, monotonous and riddled with mirages which really lead to nowhere. You find yourself waiting endlessly for a breakthrough, but the waiting time, while excruciating could actually heighten the taste of success when it finally comes your way, making it feel like the drawn out “aaaaaahaaaaa!” that emanates from deep inside your being after drinking a long needed glass of cold water.

I have been at both ends of the emotional spectrum that the field experience induces. Fieldwork in New York City was a blast. The musicians were generally very enthusiastic to welcome me into their worlds. Each week I found myself conducting several interviews and attending several shows, and those eureka moments just kept coming, over and over and over again. After a while I found that I was so drained that I started to avoid going to gigs and even meeting musicians.

My experience in Lagos was quite similar, largely productive.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, was generally a drag. Most of the musicians in L.A just seemed cold and unwelcoming. Besides one or two exceptions, the musicians I set out to meet in Los Angeles came across as very aloof. Repeatedly, my emails were ignored and efforts to schedule interviews were spurned. One informant that I eventually interviewed stood me up two times before finally showing up the third time for an interview, even though each time he had picked the date and time for the interviews. I should add that this informant, when he eventually came around, was quite helpful.

I did have a few eureka moments while I was in Los Angeles; for example, having the opportunity to watch Femi Kuti perform live at the House of Blues. Irrespective of the multiple let downs I had encountered in L.A., that one event made me feel that my being in L.A could not have been better timed. And the next day, when my wonderful roommate gave me an article about Femi that had been published in a local newspaper that I may otherwise have been unaware of, it seemed certain that the stars were aligning in my favor after all.

One thing that I did learn when I was in L.A was that San Francisco is the place to be for anyone who is interested in exploring the West Coast Afrobeat scene. That eureka moment happened when I had the opportunity to interview D.J. Said, a San Francisco based “Afrohouse” disk jockey who had come to perform in L.A. Ever since he briefed me on how vibrant the Afrobeat scene in San Francisco was, I knew I would eventually have to come out here. In the end, I have to say that my L.A. experience was valuable in the sense that if I didn’t go out to L.A., I would probably not have realized that San Francisco is where I needed to be.

And so I am now finally in San Francisco, and so far, it’s been good. There are many things that I love about this city, but the one thing I am still trying to find is the “vibrant” Afrobeat scene which was promised. One of the bands that I came out to see was on tour around the bay area when I arrived but at the time I was still too unsettled to try to trail them. What I am curious about though is why the email I sent to their myspace page was read but never replied. This is not an unusual experience, and I have learnt that you cannot always take the seeming nonchalance of the musians you are trying to write about (and by extension, promote) personally. The band, after all, was on tour. Maybe my email was somehow forgotten in the midst of all the busyness of the tour, at least this is what I tell myself to avoid the feeling of being blown off. It’s harder for me to justify why another musician, from another band, has not returned my calls after leaving her detailed voicemail messages on several occasions about my work and desire to meet her. I did get through to another member of the same band, however, who showed enthusiasm about my work and even emailed me the phone numbers of a few other contacts. I have called them, and await their responses.

Tracking down musicians at gigs can be like trying to catch clouds and pin them down, just ask the nuns from the Sound of Music. But sometimes, surprisingly, musicians come after you, and that’s always eureka! This was the case last Thursday when I attended the weekly Afrolicious party hosted by D.J. Pleasuremaker and his brother OZ at the Elbo room in the Mission district. As I sat in the dimly lit club, observing, taking notes and waiting for the party to break out full swing, D.J. Pleasuremaker, who had taken a break from the stage walked up to me and said “hi, thanks for coming out tonight.” I seized the opportunity to introduce myself and explain about my research to him, he was very enthusiastic in sharing about what he does and we ended up talking for a while, eventually exchanging contact information. Now, that’s the way fieldwork should always go.

I really do not have any doubts that there is a vibrant Afrobeat scene in San Francisco, it just seems to be unraveling rather slowly. Or maybe I had my expectations raised too high and I am expecting a little too much a little too early. When emails and phone calls fail to yield results, meeting musicians up front at their shows sometimes (not always) works. This is what I intend to do this weekend as shows by D.J. Said, Sila and the Afrofunk experience, Albino, Aphrodesia and Kotoja are will be happening.