Contributed Photo
Omonte.
Multiply hyphenated New Haven creative Rick Omonte — a.k.a. DJ Shaki — has spent decades ping-ponging from project to project, adding new titles to his name and he hasn’t let a global pandemic slow his roll. With his recently revamped website for Shaki Presents, the musician-DJ-concert booker and promoter-radio host-label head-zine producer-all-around musical polyglot has managed to create something sincere, singular and engrossing: a unique collection of his insights and encounters with the machinations of the Peruvian music business.
The website is part documentary, memoir, music historiography, business lesson and travelogue. The stories contained within are a welcome escape into a world almost unknown outside of Peru.
At its most elemental, the website is an illuminating companion to last year’s Puro Tayta Shanti, a compilation of Peruvian folkloric dance music, meticulously culled from thousands of self-scavenged records and released on Omonte’s own Discos Shaki imprint, in collaboration with Small Axe records. Its music pulses with a joy that echoes through the mountainous landscapes of its origins. Tayta shanti is a genre seldom explored outside its native Peruvian regions. Hypnotic and primal drums thunder metronomically under horns that sound ripe to burst under the sheer breathe force blowing through them, elsewhere accordians wheeze sentimentally, and singers vocalize ecstatically. it is a varied and organic genre that begs continued exploration.
The record has also recently found a new home in video form on the website, accompanied by still and video images shot and edited in collaboration with his partner, artist Gabriella Svenningsen.
“The website is something I probably should have worked up a long time ago,” said Omonte, “but whenever time would pop up, there would be a thousand other things I wanted to work on other than a stupid website. I really don’t like spending a lot of time on the internet.”
There is no such things as a good time for a global pandemic, but it would be hard to fault Omonte for being slightly embittered by the cosmic cruelty of the world grinding to a halt just as the ground began to thaw on a dizzying number of projects. As a DJ, Omonte had culled enough regular gigs to reach the modest but real financial benchmark of making rent through creative pursuit alone. He plays bass in local psych-rock heavyweights Mountain Movers and Headroom; Mountain Movers finished recording an LP’s worth of material the first week of March, while Headroom was putting the finishing touches on a recent split LP with haze gaze locals Landing. And as concert booker and promoter, Omonte had attracted an impressive run of heady and international musical acts coming to his home venue, the State House.
“That was just the tip of the iceberg. There were a bunch of shows that we hadn’t even announced yet, big stuff,” Omonte said. There was an ease to his words that breathed with a quiet acceptance. “I was already planning on reorganizing a little in anticipation of being a father,” he said. Omonte and Svenningsen began quarantine only a trimester away from becoming first-time parents.
Omonte exuded an effortless chill and after a contemplative pause, continued. “Anyway, all of a sudden, I had a few weeks where there was nothing going on, and I had taken this trip to Peru in October to deliver the compilation to the artists who were on it. It was a huge trip for me. A lot of these people I had only met through wiring money to them and now I’m in Huancayo [Peru] meeting all these huge band leaders.”
His voice was already imbued again with a sense of sincere enthusiasm. “And a huge part of this trip was just finding these people and making connections and also just them saying, ‘oh, you are a real person, you’re not just some scammer,’” he said. “We had this amazing trip and took a lot of pictures and videos, and then I got back and went right back into shows.”
Omonte continued reflecting. “Now, a few months later, looking at all this stuff from outside eyes and seeing the farms, the markets — there is just this cool atmosphere to everything and I really want people to see this.”
So over the ensuing months, finding pockets of time between feedings, Omonte was able to go through his SD cards and video footage and weave together a captivating quilt of pastoral Peru with all its bucolic bustle.
“Now that I’ve finally got the website up, it’s like, ‘stupid me, this stuff is great, I don’t know why it took so long,’” Omonte said.
As for what’s next for Omonte, he eventually anticipates shows, DJ sets, perhaps more compilations. He’s learned to play close to the vest on anything less than a sure thing, but he did say that as far as public events are concerned, “It has to be responsible and that is a really complex word. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.”
For the time being Omonte’s biggest project is just getting started. “I’m excited I have this time at home to get to know my son, to get to know how to be a dad,” he said. “Fatherhood’s a trip.”
Peru may be the worst impacted by CoViD, now. It's official death rate is the highest, higher even than Belgium. A few weeks ago, my wife was on conference call with a physician friend who works in the impoverished port section of Lima. The friend looked totally drained. (In addition to her hospital work, she had lost her physician husband to CoViD.)