“Obviously, Paul Simon’s Graceland is a huge influence on this. I do genre parody, and this is definitely mostly Graceland.”
Photo: kylegordonisgreat
The seventh song on Paul Simon’s legacy-defining 1986 album, Graceland,is an upbeat ditty called “Mr. Jambo.” The melody and polyrhythms —
Oops, sorry, honest mistake. That song is called “Under African Skies.” Kyle Gordon, the genre parodist best known for his 2023 Eurodance masterwork “Planet of the Bass,” doubts you’ll spot the difference anyway. Released on July 17 as the lead single from his upcoming comedy album Kyle Gordon Is Everywhere,“Mr. Jambo” takes loving aim at the white musicians who went to Africa in the 1980s to experiment with their sound, only to return home after conferring with a supposed wise native and realizing, to quote one of Gordon’s stanzas, “the love that you seek is written in the wisdom of the ancient scrolls.” The parody itself would be an amusing listen due to the ample use of fretless bass and “Nothing But Flowers”–era Talking Heads groove, but Gordon had one more trick up his tweed sleeve: He personally funded a full week in Africa with a group of friends to film an accompanying video, which brought the group through <a href="https://absafricatv.com/2026-world-cup-team-report-south-africa/” title=”2026 World Cup Team Report: South Africa”>South Africa and Eswatini to link up with a local choir and brass band. “I know there are rumors going around that I did this on my honeymoon or as a tax write-off,” Gordon says. “I think my wife would’ve had me assassinated if I used our honeymoon to shoot a music video such as this. I’m cruel, but not that cruel. So, yes, this was the sole purpose of the trip.”
Gordon’s idea had been percolating for almost a year. He was, no surprise, thinking about Graceland, but he realized with a little more digging that there was a basis for such a micro-genre parody. “If there’s only one artist who does a particular thing, it’s less interesting to me than if there’s a larger trend,” he tells me. “And as I built it, I gained more and more confidence in it.” Gordon is also optimistic that he’ll be seeing a return on his monetary investment. “I’m just so proud of it,” he adds. “You never know when you put something out how people will respond or whether they’ll take to it. My goal with anything is trying to find the balance between something that’s accessible and unique to a wide audience. That’s the response that I’ve been hearing from people about ‘Mr. Jambo.’ I’m really glad.”
How’s the valley of your soul doing today? Is everything well?
Healed, thriving. The valley is filled with wisdom.
When did the words “Hey there, Mr. Jambo” first enter your consciousness?
It feels so crazy to put this out now, because I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a song for longer than this. I studied for a crazy test that no one is ever going to give me. The first time I really got the idea to do this was last fall. I had just finished my last tour, and I was debating how long I wanted to take before making new music. This was one of the first songs I started noodling on when I knew I was going to start writing again. Obviously, Paul Simon’s Graceland is a huge influence on this. I do genre parody, and this is definitely mostly Graceland. So it was when I first heard Johnny Clegg, who’s a South African artist I love, that tipped me over the edge. I wasn’t inspired by his lyrics, but when I first heard his music about a year ago, he was doing a very similar thing before Paul Simon — combining western rock and pop with traditional African music. When I heard that, I was like, This is also very ’80s. There’s a bigger world here.And that’s when I got excited.
Everyone is, understandably, making the Graceland connection. Who would you say are the forefathers of this musical genre who were the strongest influences for this parody?
Let me just say for the record: Gracelandis one of my favorite albums, and I think it’s one of the greatest pop albums of all time. It’s a stunning masterpiece. But the lyrics are essentially him singing over Ladysmith Black Mambazo and then singing about how he’s depressed because he got divorced from Princess Leia and he’s awkward at Upper West Side parties. It was sort of loosely influenced by that, but he has these elliptical kind of lyrics; they’re hard to pin down sometimes. So a lot of the influence came from the visuals of the “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” video and his performances with Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Saturday Night Live. There were a lot of “a dorky white guy in front of an African choir” images. And I was definitely influenced by Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel.
And don’t get me started on “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” That song has a very interesting, complicated past. But in particular, there’s a version by this pop group from the 1980s called Tight Fit that was a No. 1 hit in the United Kingdom. That song has had such a life and also embodies “white guy mishearing African lyrics and imagining that he’s giving you some crazy wisdom.” I could talk about that song for days. The original lyrics are from a song from the 1930s by a South African Zulu singer, and he’s pretty much just talking shit. He’s like, “I’m a lion. I’m the best. I’m a lion.” And then they reinterpreted it in English like, “Oh, the beautiful lion in the wilderness.”
I then really need to give you props for this stanza: “Well, I couldn’t speak his language and I couldn’t understand a word / But I knew his meaning was what I decided I had heard.”
It came from the African wisdom that’s swirling around us all, if we only just have the courage to reach out and grab it. I feel like I don’t even write songs. I just let a greater force channel through me, and it was one of those moments.
Several session musicians involved in this type of music — I’ll just spitballAdrian Belew’s name, who worked with Paul Simon and Talking Heads — are very much alive and recording. Did you ever consider recruiting them for the song, or would that defeat its purpose?
If I thought they would actually respond to my emails, maybe I would’ve considered it. I didn’t shoot for the stars enough. When we do the 40th-anniversary box set of this, we’ll get Adrian Belew and Bakithi Kumalo on that version. We’ll do a We Are the World 25, and I’ll get all the musicians to play on the 20-minute version of “Mr. Jambo.”
Gordon filming “Mr. Jambo” in Africa earlier this year. Ori Segev.
Gordon filming “Mr. Jambo” in Africa earlier this year. Ori Segev.
You went to Africa to film this. The scenery is beautiful. How on earth did you pull that off, and who funded the production?
I funded it all myself. So knock on wood I’ll make even a fraction of it back. I was able to pull it off because of my old buddies and team at Loose Films, and also my brother, who works with me, supported me. He shoots a lot of the social stuff, and he’s also an editor. He and his wife edited all the social clips that you see. That was the team here in New York and then we got connected with some producers in Africa. We filmed in South Africa and Eswatini, which was known as Swaziland until a few years ago. I knew I wanted a safari-type setting, and then I wanted a setting with the choir and Mr. Jambo. Those were two separate things. Everything you see with animals on safari, that’s in South Africa. Everything with another person other than myself, that was in Eswatini.
Can you tell me more about the budget you put in place and the parameters you set for yourself?
I’d rather not put a dollar amount on it just so I don’t have to remind myself and I can go to sleep at night. We were there for eight days in total. Luckily, it was my buddies, and most of them were working for free — my American friends. I obviously paid for them to go out and put them up and everything, but they were kind enough to help me with that. The first part of the trip was in South Africa. We flew into Cape Town and went to a game reserve that was a few hours north of the city. Then we flew a puddle jumper for about three hours to the other side of the country where Eswatini is landlocked. We spent a few days there finishing up the filming, went back to Cape Town, and flew back home.
Did you try to get your label to provide any funding?
I’m putting this new album out with BMG, who put out my last two albums, and I love working with them. But at that time, we didn’t have a deal yet. So I was like, Fuck it, I’ve got to go. You just hope the attention brings other financial opportunities. This is a brand call right now. A marketing initiative!
How did you find your leading man to play Mr. Jambo, and how did you explain this concept? Same question for the wonderful background performers as well.
Mr. Jambo is just a retired guy who’s the nicest guy in the world. He’s a friend of the producer. I told him the concept of the song. I was blunt and just said, “I’m a dumb American tourist. I’m going to be bugging this guy, and he wants me to go away.” He was like, “Got it.” His name is Mandla Dlamini. When I first saw a clip of him telling the camera, “Go away, go away, go away,” I was like, This guy’s the man. We still talk all the time. I sent him the video, and he sent a really nice note and seems to be really excited about it. Everyone was laughing at me the entire time. It was awesome. But they understood I’m some moron who has no idea what I’m doing or talking about.
Did the safari animals behave themselves in the presence of such greatness?
That was crazy, because we only had two days on this game reserve because it was a private reserve. We spent a day and a half chasing these animals around the park. I was able to get pretty close to the giraffes. The zebras were a little more skittish, but the giraffes were confused by me. At a certain point they’d run away. They were really the best actors we got on the whole production. Way better than me.
You’re rocking a Mets hat and lightweight suit in the video. What thought went into choosing this particular ensemble?
It’s the classic 1980s yuppie. “I make a ton of money, but I also wear jeans so you know I’m not stuffy like my dad.” I knew I always wanted that classic look and particular combination: baseball hat, tweed jacket, some ridiculously colorful tie, jeans, and sneakers. That big baseball-hat shape where the top of it goes a foot above your head was nonnegotiable. I mean, I’ll be honest: I would wear that every day if I could.
How did the success of“Planet of the Bass”further open up the Kyle Gordon parody-video business over the past few years? Do you think you could have made “Mr. Jambo” if you didn’t already have that previous proof of concept?
There’s no possible way. “Planet of the Bass” changed my life in many ways. I had no idea what I was doing, really. I’d never put music out before. I got the confidence to know that I can keep doing these parodies, because the most important thing is I have so much fun making all of these things more than anything else I do. I had been on social media and built up an audience before I released “Planet of the Bass,” but I hadn’t put out any music. The crux of my live act prior to doing anything online was musical-comedy stuff. I went away from that for a while when people first started to get to know me online. Then pivoting back with “Planet of the Bass,” I was like, Oh, I can really do this.
Before the pandemic, you could see me in front of 20 people at a show in Brooklyn, in a bar, playing my guitar. The way I wrote and thought about comedy music was, I need to test it in front of a live audience for however long a comedian would with a joke before I have the confidence to put it out. “Planet of the Bass” was the one song on my first album where I had that persona character but never tried the song out. If I were to have tested that out at a live show, I don’t think it would have worked. It gave me the confidence to write music more like a normal songwriter and not feel the need to test it in front of a comedy audience. In fact, it can actually hinder it, because the structure of a joke doesn’t match the structure of a good song. I guess I have a vague sense about this, but I genuinely try not to think about success or look at social-media numbers. I don’t consider that at all when I’m writing or creating stuff.
Let’s say Paul Simon, a curious man, stumbles upon your song and then reads this interview. What would you want to tell him?
“I love you.” I was never a big Simon & Garfunkel guy. But Paul Simon as a soloist is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. I never get tired of Graceland, but I also love the album he did after that, The Rhythm of the Saints.People should listen to it. It’s less commercial. He took the same concept and writing style, but instead of primarily South African music, he combined Brazilian and West African music. If this song turns people on to Graceland, I would point them to Rhythm of the Saints too, which they’ll enjoy. But long story short, I would say to Paul Simon, “You’re awesome.”
The Story Behind Kyle Gordon’s Incredible ‘Mr. Jambo’ Parody
