Thank you so much for this OP! I've had the pleasure of meeting Jeff once a couple years ago in Toronto and he is one of the nicest people you could meet; very open to pictures/chatting with fans. Thanks for asking my questions! Btw, I wonder if Rashawn's role has changed; I definitely wasn't pulling it out of my ass lmao... here's the video where Rashawn refers to himself as the musical director of DMB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8rnffUE4IU (@ 0:49).
Anyway, awesome interview! I don't think I had ever really heard the in-depth story about how he replaced Roi from his perspective; other than little soundbytes here and there. Definitely hadn't heard those stories about Vusi Mahlasela and Dave; very fascinating. And very cool to hear about how Jeff used to practice 12 hours a day on top of being a full-time student; I mean, I guess its obvious he would've had to have practiced that much to be as good as he is! Very inspiring!
Also, to him possibly playing dumb about the studio sessions... that doesn't surprise me. Jeff isn't tuned into every little thing Dave is saying or doing (he doesn't know what the fans know) and I'm sure there are a lot of NDA's associated with studio sessions and stuff like that so its in Jeff's best interests to just play dumb whenever those questions come up. However, I doubt Jeff has been sitting in with them either. It is cool to hear they still do the rehearsal rooms backstage though at the shows! I'm sure there's been at least a couple new songs that have grown out of those.