Anungla Longkumer
Springboard Surprises
John McLaughlin hears Senti Toy’s debut album ‘how many stories do you read on my face?’ and he is swayed to comment, “This first recording of Senti Toy is one of the most refreshing recordings I have heard in many a year. The songs are ‘original’, something rarely heard these days and plus, very meaningful lyrics. Thank you Senti”…BBC radio plays a song off the album and host Courtney Pine wishes aloud for the album to be released in the UK…Senti’s album figures on the Wall Street Journal’s A-list for the best of 2007...National Public Radio calls up requesting an interview with Senti...Downbeat calls to find out just who Senti is…Coke picks Senti for a music podcast and…more of the same reactions keep coming in. You could say Senti Toy’s debut album is fanning ripples right around it.
If you haven’t heard of Senti Toy before, perhaps it’s because Senti lives in New York City or that her 10 song debut album was released first in Japan on Intoxicate in 2006 and a year later on Circular Moves in the USA, but it’s probably got more to do with the fact that Senti does nothing to make public her album. “Promotions? Eeesh…I didn’t even get to finish (the album) properly”, she says laughing. Does Senti not care that her album…sells? “Of course it would be great. But if it means my having to pay attention to marketing and promotion I’ll give it a pass. I don’t want to have anything to do with it besides making the music and performing it. I find it a drag that today artists are supposed to be able to do and think of all these things. I simply cannot. So I give it a pass.”
Now, if she is shy of what you call self-promotion, Senti hardly shies away from self-expression. Her spontaneous alto weaves in, out and away over warp and weft of acoustic guitars, bass, reeds, brass, drums and percussions throwing light on the many facets that make her who she is, artist, friend, woman, lover, child, mother, sister, naga, how many are they? In the song ‘because I am woman’ Senti demystifies all “…the look in my eyes, hides my enigma…”
So, who really is Senti Toy? In a nutshell, she is recluse singer/songwriter, homemaker & music student completing her doctoral degree in Ethnomusicology from New York University where she has been awarded the Torch Prize and also an award from American Association of University Women and who best of all, got a chance to record her debut album on her own terms. However, this album is now drawing more attention than she bargained for. It is attention well deserved though, for more than telling of enigmas, Senti’s stories are real.
Home, Kohima, is where it all began, as a child with a toy guitar. “I must’ve been 3 years old,” recalls Senti known as Aien to family. “I would sit myself down with that plastic guitar strumming it and singing gibberish for hours.” When her parents bought her big brother a real guitar, he would teach her simple songs like “Country Road”, “Sunday Morning” etc. Senti recalls, “I would sit with the guitar for hours singing by myself with our pet cat Lesika as my die-hard fan listening intently every second of it. It was a magical time!”
It was in her college days in Bombay when Senti got introduced to different genres of singing styles. “That was an exciting time for me. I started singing jazz standards in particular. It was during that time that Louis Banks ‘discovered’ me as he put it then, and I was on my way to singing jingles for tv, radio and film.” After passing her 12th from Sophia’s, with distinction no less, Senti stayed on in Bombay sharing time between studies and singing jingles at 4D studio. “I believe this was one of the important educational moments of my life musically,” she testifies. “I would be around some wonderful musicians every single day, from Louis himself to Roy Venkataraman and Karl Peters in particular among many others. We would have endless discussions and conversations about music, philosophy and whatever else. I dug being around them and to be treated as their little sister as we worked away in the studio everyday.” Senti reckons all this “prepared” her for life in the East village, New York City where she now lives. “I have rapturous moments listening to music here, and just being exposed to the sheer artistry and vision of the musicians I choose to hear,” she declares. “It’s when I got here that I really began to understand what it means to be sincere and truly dedicated to whatever art form you choose.”
But, it was the song ‘kohima’ written some seventeen years ago which led to the making of Senti’s debut album. She recounts, “This song came to me very quickly one evening in Bombay in a moment of deep anxiety and memory of Kohima, at a time when some shootings had just happened”. “…Kohima, is that a gunshot? Do I see bloodstains on my land…Kohima, tell me that old, old story, of the sweet simple way you once knew…”
Soon after this, Senti made a trip home and when an opportunity arrived, she sang ‘kohima’ at a local function. That was the first and the last time she sang it publicly. Fast forward 13 years. Senti’s brother calls her in NYC and asks if she could record the song for him. She finds an engineer near her house in the East Village who agrees to record this song. “I was glad I could get it and send it to my brother,” she says of that one-take, strumming her acoustic guitar. Three months later Dick Kondas the engineer calls Senti with news that he had a recording deal for her with ‘Intoxicate’ of Tower Records Japan, and that the executive was in town and, could she meet him? Had it been another period in her life she says, she’d have not accepted the record deal. “I have always been somewhat averse to making an album and putting my music out there, but this time, I was ready to take it on!”, the journey that the song ‘kohima’ led her, as she describes it “quite serendipitously and unexpectedly” towards the recording of her debut album. On the cd, ‘kohima’ has been left untouched from the recording at the engineer’s house.
Senti is delighted. “This album is a first experiment as it were. It has been a learning experience writing down parts and figuring out arrangements, instrumentation etc. It has been a good learning experience as a producer too.” Of the songs she confides, “These came about with no album or recordings in mind.” Songs inspired at different moments. Take for example, the title track. Senti remembers, “I was meeting a friend after many years and when we met, she looked at me and got a concerned look on her face and asked me if everything was alright and that my face didn’t look the same anymore…when I thought about it after I got back home I started humming and making up this song…how many stories do you read on my face, how many times has the sun risen and set…I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened!”
In her song ‘and then, and then’ Senti sings “…I bask in my solitude, go on leave me alone…content with being, a perfect time to be…” and you begin to wonder if it’s the same gregarious person here singing it. She explains, “There was a time when I found myself surrounded by friends, acquaintances who always seemed somehow restless and always needing to do something with other people to stay occupied. And I remember telling a friend that I actually bask in my solitude, does she too? The beginnings of yet another song…and somewhere halfway through the song I picked up Rilke’s book ‘Letters To A Young Poet’ at a friend’s house and was pleasantly surprised and struck by his words ‘aloneness has become my home.’ It perfectly resonated with what I was trying to say in my song, that I found comfort and rejuvenation in solitude.” Perhaps it is the solitude rooted in the geography or genes? of Senti’s origins that kindles comfort within, for to the hills and valleys of Nagaland is where she draws you again and again, in her album.
The prelude to ‘the language I cry in’, is a folk song sung acappella in her native Changki. “I learnt a few songs from an old uncle in the village. This one’s being sung to the sun by a girl from Changki who has been captured by an enemy village and death for her is imminent, (translated) “sun passing by, sun you are slipping away, sun as you slip away, should you pass by my village, should you see the one that bore me, tell her that her flower is blooming on the cliff of Mongsen village...’ I thought this was a beautiful prelude.” Then the song bursts forth into instrumentations with Senti introducing herself “...urban waif in silk and pumas…” She laughs, “My professor at NYU once commented on my clothes and called me an ‘urban waif’ so it’s actually his picture of me! I thought that was funny.” But Senti describes herself more a “nomad of modernity, who knows to walk the walk…talk the talk” and yet “never separated from my person…never knowing why…when the sky swims in my eyes, I hear my mother’s song, I hear my father’s tale, and my name is Aien…the language I cry in, gives me away…”
And then “more than the fingers on my hands” was written after Senti read derogatory remarks by an anthropologist, documented in 1874, on the “low intelligence” of Nagas stating they can’t count beyond their ten fingers. Senti was initially angry at what she terms “this misrepresentation and this lie” but she realized, “I felt more sympathy for the scholar and for all others which includes most of us, unfortunately, that feel so ensconced and content within our narrow parameters of thinking and so-called knowledge that it numbs us to anything outside these parameters, that there is no more room for discovery or other ways of thinking outside the box, no more room to investigate another dimension.” And so she sings, “…my mother cried out loud, she cried, the blindness that humanity can stand, the wrongs of the world, more than the fingers of my hands…” And here the young voice of Senti’s daughter (born & growing up in downtown Manhattan) can be heard counting rhythmically in Changki. “I had fun having Nhumi and her friend Emma sing on the album,” Senti says of that experience. “I think they lent a special spark. I wrote a short Changki phrase for them to sing and they learnt to count in Changki, so it was educational as well for them. Good results all round!” Senti laughs. “…my mother laughed out loud, she laughed, she had borne a dozen children, knew every tree by name, every star as her own…”
And again ‘say a word’ reflects vibes of Nagaland and Africa in its simple sonic excursion. “It’s written by me and Tony Cedras from South Africa. My words are in Angami and Ao and I sing very much influenced by Naga traditional music in this piece. Our folk melodies and sense of music is very similar to African music. Tony and I had no problems relating with each other musically and understanding each other’s sensibilities.”
Senti also draws inspiration from her most self-assured place. “I am a river that nourishes…I am the sun that ripens the fruit…water sweet…moist earth…I am…” About this song ‘because I am woman’ Senti explains with a split-wide cheeky smile, “I think girls are way cooler than boys so I didn’t have to try too hard for this song, especially after the birth of my own daughter. I whole heartedly believe in equal rights for women. Women must have equal voice, equal representation, equal respect, equal opportunity in this world. History has shown otherwise and we continue to see it, and it has got to change.”
And the key to change, Senti believes, is music. “Music can carry us forward and inspire and enlighten. I definitely believe that music is very, very important in uplifting a people to bring about change, in helping set a higher vision.” But rather than dwelling on the change that music can bring about, Senti speaks first of the change that music makers can bring about. “Here in Nagaland, I spoke to many young musicians about what their music meant for them. They said it was their source of sanity, their reason to continue living, particularly having to live with unemployment and political tension, and it kept them out of trouble!” In terms of comparing them to the kids in the US, Senti has no doubts opportunities there far outweigh those in Northeastern India whether it’s to find a good engineer, or a studio or the right tools/instruments. But she advises, “In the big picture I don’t think these are the make or break situations by any stretch of the imagination.
“I think youth wherever they are have to hold on to their sense of imagination, because I think that is what is under threat for them in this globalized world of constant bombardment of corporate driven popularized music, food, clothes, what have you which is mostly not about quality and meaningfulness but about making a quick buck with no serious attention to substance and meaning or beauty. This can only set us behind and bring change for the worse where ‘creativity’ is limited to making a buck and has nothing to do with art. This I believe is the biggest problem everywhere.”
“We have to find ways of keeping our imagination, innovation and creativity alive no matter what. That is the biggest strength, the biggest step to moving forward. We have to learn to seek out books, art, music, films, dance, poetry, people, food, beauty, conversations that are meaningful, inspiring, that triggers and stimulates our minds and makes living worth every bit of it.” Senti believes artistic pursuit must be fueled by the desire to “learn, to create our own avenues with sheer force of will, faith and belief in what we do, create it for ourselves first of all without an audience in mind, without the idea of pleasing somebody but with the sheer drive of creating something that we enjoy, that means something important to us. With this in place, opportunities will be in place too, for in doing that, we develop and create the best opportunities for ourselves in every manner of speaking.
“Youth today in Nagaland and the Northeast want to find employment in music and some have been able to and continue to. This is certainly a positive move, and I hope more avenues open up. Many, I found out, have released albums and are finding ways of putting out original music. I went around some music shops here to ask if original music of local artists sold and how much – to my surprise the answer was in the negative. No, local artists’ cds did not budge from the shelves especially if they were western/English lyrics. A lot of questions came to mind. Are we just mere mimickers of the west that our own people can see through it and won’t accept us? But we grew up on western music. That is music that is ‘native’ to us now. I certainly consider that as my strongest musical vocabulary as well, so…where’s the problem? I mean I can’t suddenly start singing traditional songs and force myself into this ‘genre’ of music for whatever reason.”
Senti feels such thoughts resonate with many youth, at least in Nagaland. She herself experienced such a personal crisis around the time she was in Bombay. “I actually stopped writing songs and singing my songs for some years as I felt I had no voice of my own, that I had constantly been just mimicking, so what was the use anyway….that period was a tormenting moment of my life when I chose to be in silence. I needed to find my voice, my music. I am still looking for it, and I still have the same questions. But I’ve learnt to realize that the beauty, the satisfaction, is in the struggle, this journey of discovery. By no measure am I anywhere near success. I want to tell fellow artists here to keep on, no matter what, we are all in this together. Yes, it’s true we have made, or rather circumstances have necessitated that we make something western and what was alien, our own. And we seem to be neither here nor there in terms of acceptance as artists in the big picture, but, only we can change that. Music that comes from the right place is too powerful to tolerate social conditioning and perceptions.”
And where springs inspiration for Senti? “Imagination, sanity, beauty.” For her, songwriting has always been a sort of an outlet, “something that pulls me together in a way.” Of the actual process she divulges, “sometimes it’s the words, sometimes it’s the music and sometimes both simultaneously. I can never quite anticipate how a song gets created. For example, ‘you got breath’ started with the words. I saw a little boy and his father running up the staircase at a subway station in Brooklyn, and when we all got in the elevator, the little boy was gasping for breath and his father said ‘you got breath’ and gave him some water to drink. I wasn’t sure what exactly he meant by “you got breath” but I just sensed this enormous affection and love from the father for his son and those words stayed with me and wouldn’t you know it, it became a song of love, “you got breath, that is my reason…” The melody sort of followed quite naturally. I do try to have both elements words and music, be equally strong. ‘when I dance’ on the other hand began with this interesting melody line that kept coming to my head that I thought I could dance to, in a strange way. ‘kohima’ on the other hand came to me as a complete song, words and music beginning to end.”
Of those who’ve helped shape her style musically, they are Senti claims, far too many to recount, but if she had to name some that come to mind right now? “I would say Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Bjork, Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, Chemical Brothers, and many more.” Senti also cites as a definite influence her husband Henry Threadgill, multi-instrumentalist & jazz composer and a leading light in music in her books. So what of Henry’s opinion on her album? She lights up, “Henry thinks it’s a very good album, he likes it! At first he could not stop playing ‘because I am woman’ over and over and over! He’s over it now,” she says eyes twinkling. And how does she feel about John McLaughlin’s comments on her songs? “Happy and lucky!” she admits. “In this environment of corporatization and aggressive marketing, somehow my music found its way to some listeners and critics who actually enjoyed it for what it is. I am happy to know that! I think that was very generous of John McLaughlin. Despite his brilliance and fame, he is a humble man with big wide-open ears and a very open mind.”
Until last year Senti had to teach undergrads at NYU as part of her phd. program besides having to deal with her course requirements. But after four years, she says she is done with those crazy time conflicts and scheduling, “I have a little more space now.” She’s up by 6 every morning pottering around the house, cooking some, taking care of daily chores and finding time to do some reading or writing. But for the most part, it’s family time. “I hold on to it as much as I can,” she says. And what of current, creative, fare? “Some song is always brewing in the back burners as I go about life,” she replies, quite enigmatically.
Could she now offer words of advice for the likes of her own in Nagaland and the Northeast, trying to make a living through music? Senti’s smile is curved wide, “Stay true to yourself and, keep pushing the parameters!”
