What attracted me to the game is that even though it covers very deep areas of human relationships and is about the transformative power of love, grief and loss, the game is not gloomy or dark. In fact it is wrapped in the rich colourful world of African Bantu mythology and the African diaspora of art, culture and music.

We wanted a score steeped with orchestral elements fused with African traditional instrumentation with voices to bring in the feel of the ancestors and afrofuturism represented by very modern synths and beats.

I was inspired by the traditional fashions, colours, landscapes and of course the music of the continent. My parents were brought up in South Africa and East Africa so I have spent time there and have a strong familiarity with the music.

The orchestral recordings took place at Abbey Road in London with a wide array of diverse musicians, as well as Vienna, Austria. It was very important to me to shine a spotlight on the diversity of African musicians.

Instead of just layering on African elements on top of the score, I wanted African music to be embedded into the DNA of the music. The orchestral parts are imbued with the harmonic language and rhythms of African traditions and we Incorporated highly percussive rhythms with strings which were very challenging to play.

One of the bedrocks of traditional West African music is the ancestral Griot tradition, which literally means ‘storyteller’. You can only be a griot if you are born into it where the music is passed down generation to generation. There are so many different instruments from the various tribes to pull from.

I did a lot of research into the music of the region and found various West African master musicians like Djembe and Dun Dun player Sidiki Dembele from the Ivory Coast, Baba Galle Kante who plays the Fulani flute from Guinea and Mali, and Kadialy Kouyate who plays the Kora, a West African stringed instrument that sounds like a harp.

The solo cello played by Elliott Bailey brings in a lyricism that bridges the gap between the West and Africa. The Boss fights are incredibly complex rhythmically and we used many war drums and hand percussion for multiple layers of cross rhythms.

I recorded an eight piece South African choir in Johannesburg. All the lyrics were inspired by Zau’s journey. The group chants are all sung in Swahili with solos sung in the local language Zulu. We also recorded Voquality, a diverse UK based choir that recorded the bigger choir elements. The choirs makes the music more human with the connection to the player, but it’s also an element deep rooted In African culture.

The solo players and singers don’t read music so I guided their performances and we improvised a lot. I would often sing them melodies and phrases I wanted, but also worked to their strengths and local musical traditions which often resulted in fantastically surprising results.

My own musical roots cover non-western musical traditions having worked at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios working with world musicians such as Papa Wemba the Congolese band, so I really enjoyed bringing in the different musical traditions of South, West and East Africa into the score.

Each of the three main locations in the game are inspired by different geographical and tribal regions; the woodlands are based on the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania; the Highlands are inspired by the Ethiopian landscape and South African Ndebele Tribe; the Deadlands are inspired by the Tswana tribe in South Africa and Yoruba in West Africa. They all have a different landscape and therefore a different musical feel that had to reflect the different biomes in the game.

Alongside the epic high energy aspects of the score that encapsulate anger, danger and the perils of Zau’s journey with gritty edgy synths, there’s also a lot of mysticism, mystery and heartfelt emotion.

With the main theme we didn’t want to focus on the immediate story of grief. We wanted to cover overarching themes such as Ancestry and modernity and integrating a call and response. There is a subtle undercurrent of loss but there were also discussions around a theme of two conflicting ideas, conflict and resolution, the transformation of Zau’s character. All of these came from a place of traditional African vocals and rhythms on one side, juxtaposed with Afrofuturistic synth textures.

Credits

Orchestrator: Geoff Lawson

Additional Music: Gijs van Amelsvoort

Score Copying/Music Prep: Tristan Noon

Score Mixer: Steve Parr

Session Prep: Jack McCartney

Soloists

Percussion: Sidiki Dembele

Fula Flute: Baba Galle Kante

Cello: Elliott Bailey

Kora: Radially Kouyate

London - Angel Studios

Scoring Engineer: Fiona Cruickshank

Choir: Voquality

Choir Master: Ken Burton

Derek Green, Kwaku Agyemang, Colin Anderson, Emmanuel Dadey, Yolanda Grant-Thompson, Mikaela Hoyte, Paul Lee, Gabriella Liandu, Themba Mvula, Emma Osei-lah, Shivaji Ratan, Arabella Rodrigo, Lydia Shariff, Cecilia Wickham, Philip Yeboah, Lufuno Ndou

Vienna - Synchron Stage Vienna

Scoring Engineer: Tristan Linton, Bernd Mazagg

Conductor: Bernhard Melbye Voss

Pro Tools Operator: Lukas Lützow, Erwin Wonisch, Martin Weismayr

Contractor: Marton Barka

Technical Manager: Roland Tscherne

Stage Monitor Mixer: Stephan Huber, Thomas Böck, Alexander-Maria Lehner

Music Prep & Librarian: Stefan Höll, Sugi Shin

Project Coordinator: Josy Svajda, Stefan Steinbauer

South Africa - The Loft Studios, Johannesburg

Choir Producer: JB Arthur

Choir: Anele Qwengana, Banzi Makhubu, Bongani Gama, Gugulethu Sibaya, Kate Nyamende, Senzeka Mnguni

Soloists: Sipho Mhlanga, Zamasina Jantjie

London - Abbey Road Studios

Scoring Engineer: Nick Wollage

Orchestra Contractor: Susie Gillis for Isobel Griffiths

Orchestra Leader: Everton Nelson

Conductor: Gavin Greenaway

Violin: Miles Brett, Elodie Chousmer-Howlles, Steven Crichlow, Sarah Daramy-Williams, Raja Halder, Marianne Haynes, Ian Humphries, Braimah Kanneh-Mason, Nicolette Kuo, Ronald Long, Sarah Martin, Kotono Sato, Jackie Shave

Cello: Ian Burdge, James Douglas, David Kadamukasa, Desmond Neysmith, Tamaki Sugimoto, Tony Woollard

Double Bass: Mary Scully, Evangeline Tang

Trumpet: Jason Evans, Kate Moore, Chris Storr

French Horn: Kira Doherty, Philippa Koushk-Jalali, Corinne Bailey, Richard Watkins

Trombone: Chris Augustine, Richard Henry, Becky Smith, Andy Wood

Tuba: Sasha Koushk-Jalali

"...stirring orchestral score"

- BBC

"A gorgeous and lively score from Nainita Desai helps breathe even more life into the rolling plains and dark caverns of Kenzera"

- Forbes

"The soundtrack may be the best part of Tales of Kenzera: ZAU.”

- CG Magazine