Biography

Tony Matola an accomplished and versatile musician.  Mozambican/British born in Maputo, the son of respected church pastors, and a real visionary. His early music experience came as an eye-opener, when a traditional Timbila Orchestra from Zavala performed at his school. It was love at the first sound listening to those big magic wooden instruments with extraordinary sounds.

After this enlightening musical experience Tony Matola became fascinated with diversity of African and world cultures.

Born from his experiences so far, he secretly joined piano classes at the Ferroviario Club embarking on a journey which totally shaped his life. He fell in love with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.

 The only place he was in contact with a piano was during his music classes, this was never a deterrent for him since he learnt early on the power of his imagination. He would rehearse those complicated masterpieces in his own mind until the next piano lessons.

There he met another talented young student called Baloi, who was inspiring and supportive and was to become a very close friend.

In Maputo he met Jorge Tovela a fantastic guitarist who became his mentor. Tony paid for his guitar lessons with his pocket money and occasionally Jorge would lend him his guitar to take it home, but his father was not keen in having a guitarist in the family. He occasionally travelled to Marracuene with Jorge Tovela and performed with the King of Marrabenta; Dillon Ndjinji.

His sister Elisa and husband Fred Mangoba an Air Force officer saw the potential and frustration that Tony was eager to develop his talent but was being stifled by the strict religious beliefs of his parents whom wished him to follow their path.

Elisa and Mangoba invited him to live with them in Beira. They bought him his first guitar and finally he found his sanctuary there.

An admirer of Emerson, Lake and Palmer Tony was fascinated with the electronics and electronic music that he was to pursue later on in his life.

On later moving to Ipswich in England he joined the Sri Chinmoy’s meditation centre and became a disciple and has been practicing transcendental meditation. There he found inner peace and divine inspiration. He believes that his compositions are the result of higher powers playing in him.

Whilst at Suffolk College in Ipswich he joined music classes on classical guitar and piano. His piano teacher was astonished to hear this young student’s own compositions. During the classes he was repeatedly asked to play his own music. One day he got frustrated and complaining to his teacher that, he was there to learn and not to perform. To which his teacher replied by saying that he did not have anything else to teach him. Being the only black student in his class he felt totally alienated rather than a sign of admiration.

This was the saddest day of his life. But for his colleagues he was simply a genius. He could not understand the fuss when during the break time his colleagues came to hug, shake his hand and called him a genius. He only saw the light within this moment some decades later.

He joined some bands and most of them did not want to play with him on grounds that he was very good and would not last with them. Frustrated he was forced to lower his standards in order to be accepted.

From Ipswich he moved to London where he finally pursued his electronic studies. He formed his first band in London: The Matola Band. They played a mixture of Marrabenta from Mozambique with Soukous from Zaire. The sounds featured classical, jazz, rock styles with his African blend, creating an extremely original and interesting mixture. The band became regular at the Africa Centre with support of DJ Walla.

One day whilst walking around London Warren Street he saw an advert at the Sterns Records looking for a guitarist. He replied and with no idea of the style of music required. He never heard music from Ghana before but during the audition when he started to improvise the whole atmosphere changed and when the musicians smiled at each other he knew he got the job. Without enough time to be familiar with the music on the following day he was in concert with the band.

The legendary Osibisa which Tony was a great fan of in his adolescence wanted to meet him. On his first gig at the Finsbury Park another legend of African music joined the band: Hugh Massekela. Later the band headed off to Australia and subsequently tirelessly toured the world.

He then worked and appeared on television shows in Spain with the American soul diva Chaka Khan. He took part on the National Day of Music where he met the organizer, the Rolling Stones Sir Mick Jagger.

Tired of the limelight he dedicated his life to help asylum seekers.

In London 1998 he joined the prestigious Holborn School of Law and while doing his LLB, Tony freelanced for several top Law firms for several years. Later he joined the City University on Music and the Law, which incorporated copyrights protection, management, recording, publishing contracts and other music business agreements. Law for him was intellectually stimulating but not spiritually uplifting.

He missed his native Marrabenta music, so he started to play it in a way that would inspire his imaginary vision of mixing the ancient with future sounds. Eccentrically he states that this is the music that the Pharaohs would be listening to today.

During his music experiments marrabenta gained a new outlook and needed a new name. That is how Marrambique began.

He sent a copy of his compositions to his brother Fred for an opinion and his comments were: I never heard music like that before, it must come from another planet.

That is how the “Extraterrestrial Dance” began.