The Bushman’s Wisdom
In 2010, Alex Kajumulo has released his sixth and most acclaimed album, Never Surrender, under the BabuKaju Record Label. His first five albums - Never Before, Justice for Mankind, Searching for Love, I'm Kool Like That, and Bushman Vision – have played on radio stations around the world rising to the top ten in many African countries. In just three years, since the release of his first album Never Before, Alex has over a million plays on myspace (www.myspace.com/alexkajumulo). Three of his songs have placed in the International Songwriting Competition. “Maza Africa”, from the album Never Before, was a finalist in 2007; “Family Man,” from the album Justice for Mankind was a semi-finalist in 2008; and again in 2009, “It’s Not My Fault,” the first single from his new release Never Surrender, was a finalist. “Zuwena,” also from Never Before, placed 5th in the World Music Category of the Just Plain Folks Music Awards.
In 2010, Alex began performing with his new 9 member music ensemble. This line-up includes of some of Seattle's most accomplished Jazz, Rock, Funk, Reggae, and Studio musicians. For their first show they headlined a benefit concert at the prestigious Triple Door in Seattle, WA to support the Red Cross Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund. From this show, Alex released his first live single, “One Love is the Law, now available in digital distribution. Here in Western Washington, Alex’s songs are played on KEXP, KUBE, KBCS (Bellevue Community College), KAOS (Evergreen State College), KYIZ (1620 am) and KUGS (Western Washington University). On April 16, 2009, Alex and three members of his band were featured on the Seattle Cable Channel show, "ArtZone with Nancy Guppy". In Canada, Alex’s songs were in the top 10 earshot! World music charts for almost half the year and Alex’s compilation album, Bushman: Since the Beginning of Time, reached the overall top 30 charts of a number of Canadian college radio stations as reported by earshot!. Ed Mays Productions, has produced two one hour documentaries on Alex Kajumulo and his music for Pirate TV. Both can be found on the Pirate TV website and have been aired on public access cable channel 77 in the Seattle area.
Non-profit environmental agencies around the world, like the New Zealand Trust for Conservation Volunteers, the Audubon Society of Central Oklahoma, the Earth Charter Youth Initiative, and The Climate Project have been using Alex’s song “Global Warming” from the Bushman Vision album in their promotional campaigns. Alex recently (Fall 2009) performed “Global Warming” and other songs at the Green Festival in San Francisco and has been invited to perform at the 2010 Green Festival in Seattle.
One of the foundations of Alex’s music is collaboration with talented musicians from around the world. In celebration of Black History Month, Alex and his band had the opportunity to perform at the Call to Consciousness in Tacoma, WA with Grammy award winning jazz artist Najee. He began his musical career writing and producing with the acclaimed Tanzanian artist Kool James, Mtoto wa Dandu. Since then, he has worked with DubPHixS from Belgium & the Philippines; Selassie I. Soldier from the U.S. & Jamaica; H-Bomb from the U.S. & the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lace Cadence from the U.S., Emotionz from Argentina & Canada, Ruby & Bob Antolin from the U.S. & Japan, Fela from the Central African Republic, and DJ B-Mello from Seattle, WA.
Alex Kajumulo and BabuKaju Records have a significant presence on the internet. Alex maintains two music websites at www.babukaju.com and www.alexkajumulo.com, myspace pages at www.myspace.com/alexkajumulo and www.myspace.com/babukajurecords, music sales sites with content at amazon.com and cdbaby.com, and digital downloads of all of the songs on all of his albums are available at I-tunes, amazon, cdbaby, rhapsody, and wherever digital music is for sale.