MELLOW REBEL
Certified Gypsy musician Zeb makes New York livable with his loving lounge sounds.
Words: Matt Fisher
Images: Maya Hayuk
The question of who inspires Morino Visini, otherwise known as Zeb, seems at first a simple matter. "My biggest influence is Che Guevara," he laughs. "I wear his t-shirt when I go to bed." But for this Italian-born revolutionary who blends Jamaican dub, Afrobeat, tablas and acoustic-guitar licks into dancefloor grooves, the answer's a bit more complicated.
Zeb's music eludes easy categorization, but every cut is a skilled fusion of danceable off-beat rhythm and catchy melody: ghostly flutes intertwine with funked-out baselines, African chants echo in and out of Latin conga rhythms and Arabic wails accent bassy King Tubby-style effects.
This colorful ambiguity also reflects Zeb's own
polycultural ethnic status. "I have a Gypsy background, so I feel I have
to mix different things together," he explains. "Gypsies have to adopt
the music of wherever they are and find their own twist on it. They really
have to be in touch with people's emotions musically."
Whenever a Zeb track gets dropped, it's easy to see the emotional response
on the dancefloor: his sound is subtly irresistible. "I like roundish,
bubbly sounds that are really sweet, music that makes girls dance with
their hips," he says. "That really fast, hard stuff makes me nervous."
Zeb's own life story unfolds like a Gypsy's tale. "I basically ran away from home when I was 14," he states. "The band I was in went on tour to London and we just decided to stay there." Growing up on his own in Lower Portobello Road, Zeb soaked up the music and culture of the Jamaicans, Asians, Arabs and Africans with whom he found himself living. "It blows your mind when you walk down the street there, because every store has a different kind of music playing, and then you go home and you hear all these rhythms in your head," he says.
Now living in New York City, Zeb has found a receptive audience for his own work through his affiliation with collectives like Organic Grooves and Turntables on the Hudson. He's currently at work on his second album, titled The End of the Beginning, which features guest vocals by NY's Carol C. "Che said that to be a true revolutionary, you have to go out and live it every day," explains Zeb. "My music is definitely rebel music-it's just mellow rebel music."