If at the end of May in Würzburg that Africa Festival celebrated, then superlatives pave the advance notice. Since 1989, the largest and oldest festival for African music and culture in Europe has brought more than 7500 musicians to the stage. And a good two and a half million visitors were delighted with fashion shows, storytellers, exotic cuisine – and of course live concerts. That’s an impressive achievement. On the one hand. On the other hand, the performances tend towards populism, as at every large folk festival.
Then a German Bob Marley tribute band may rock the stage at prime time. Many of the invited artists are not from Africa at all, but live in Germany and Europe. Or are like the Congolese Lokua Kanza, Elida Almeida from Cape Verde or the Gambian kora player Sona Jobarteh well-known festival greats. Nothing against a catchy soul-jazz-afro-reggae-pop-feel-good mix tailored to European listening habits.
But: What kind of music does the young generation in Africa dance to? Aren’t there a lot of groundbreaking innovations there? If you are curious about the street sounds from Dar es Salaam, Dakar or Bamako, these are for you “African Music Days” a unique opportunity to challenge entrenched African clichés at the Muffatwerk in Munich. And to experience experimental young musicians who otherwise rarely make it to Europe. Like Blinky Bill, a Kenyan DJ, producer and singer whose futuristic electro beats, together with R’n’B vocals and laconic English-Swahili raps, perfectly capture the flow of Kenya’s capital Nairobi. Or Arka’n Asrafokor from Togo, who – Attention! – produce West African polyrhythmic Metal beyond all suspicion of bawling and stomping and whose wonderful harmonies should also appeal to hard rock haters.
And who has ever experienced the stage dynamics of the Senegalese singers and rappers Defmaa Maadef in this country? Or the South African-Ghanaian duo Esinam & Sibusile Xaba, who create trance-like grooves with guitars, percussion and flutes? A total of seven young musicians and bands will present themselves on the Isar on May 25th and 26th. And definitely avoid one thing: well-known world music punching.
Ami Yerewolo was Mali’s only female rapper for a long time
“I’m the most insulted and least booked rapper in Mali,” Ami Yerewolo once said of herself. But the hip-hop artist has long been a star.
(Photo: Muffatwerk)
For example, when Ami Yerewolo from Mali picks up the microphone, some men take cover. “I’m the most insulted and least booked rapper in Mali,” she once claimed. In fact, Yerowolo has long been the only woman ever to persevere in hip-hop. And then Mali’s conservative male society with Amazon poses and sayings like “you too came out of a woman’s stomach” – upset. Yerowolo originally trained as a bank clerk. But then she quit the well-paid job to make ends meet by performing at Balani shows – traditional village celebrations and family celebrations.
Her breakthrough came in 2020 after meeting the Cameroonian bassist and producer Blick Bassy, who immediately recognized Yerewolo’s qualities: her raps in Bambara and French have this furiously feminine flow. Transform their rage into a radiant meteor tail. Bassy encouraged Yerowolo – who also organizes Mali’s only all-female hip-hop festival – to flout the conventions of Afrobeats and hip-hop and instead just express themselves. “Je Gére” is the name of one of the Malian rapper’s last hits – roughly “I throw the shop” in German.
East African singeli superstar: Sholo Mwamba grew up in the slums of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
(Photo: Muffatwerk)
The singleli rapper Sholo Mwamba comes from Tanzania, or rather the slums of Dar es Salaam. single? That’s the name of the lively, high-pitched beats that sound like drum and bass being played too fast – a stimulant to which Sholo Mwamba intones traditional Swahili chants and raps about the everyday worries of ordinary people. “Singeli is constantly changing his style,” explains the superstar of East African electronic music. “We pick up on everything that’s happening on the streets. If you want to jump, then you jump. If you want to run, then you run.” In fact, the origins of the singeli lie in the traditional taraab, the wedding music of the Arabic coastal region of Tanzania. DJs had sped up the songs and mixed them with different beats. The main thing is that the dancers go crazy. Sholo Mwamba has brought the music once associated with petty criminal milieus to respectable pop fame. As a former street kid, he initially stepped in as Master of Ceremony at traditional festivals, but his energetic performances now drive tens of thousands of enthusiastic dancers to the brink of exhaustion.
The band name of Fulu Muziki translates to “music from garbage”. And that is to be taken literally: the musicians from Kinshasa work on, tap and hammer on objects that others have thrown away. Tin cans, flip-flops, car parts, plastic pipes – these are the components for their percussion instruments, which they salvage from the rubbish dump in Ngwaka, one of the rockier areas of the Congolese capital. In order to fabricate her very own Afrofuturistic sound from it. A syncopated orgy of noise organized in a complex way, which Tche Tche, the singer and percussionist of Fulu Miziki, once said was influenced by street performers in Kinshasa as well as cinema superheroes. “We get the radio out of PVC pipes and metal cans”. Just as important as the music: the costumes, made from finds and a mixture of tribal traditions and “Wakanda” mythology. Beyond all madness masquerades, however, the collective is also concerned with political issues. About the – not only in Kinshasa – life-threatening environmental pollution, the export of electronic, plastic and clothing waste from the West to Africa and the need for recycling. It cannot be ruled out that the Fulu Muziki members will also make the garbage found in Munich sound.
This exceptional festival was made possible by the “Music In Africa Foundation”. The non-profit initiative founded in Nairobi in 2013 has now grown into the largest networking platform for young African musicians. “We have now set up six offices across the continent,” says Jens Cording from the Siemens Foundation, who co-initiated the project with the Goethe Institute and is now responsible for international relations. Overall responsibility is now one hundred percent in the hands of the Africans. The Siemens Foundation only supports and supports. What has been created in ten years exceeds all expectations: “More than 43,000 musicians and their profiles are now on the platform and 150 African authors write for them. As a composer, I want to protect my copyrights? Looking for new styles? Want to know about them The role of women in the music business? You can find all that and more there.” There are also offline initiatives such as “Music In Africa Connects”, a program for musical and inter-ethnic exchange in crisis regions such as Somalia, Chad and northern Mali. Workshops on instrument making and repair. The music conference ACCES as a meeting place for African cultural workers. Or – during Corona – the professionalization of the production of music videos. “Our goal is to make Africa self-sufficient.” If more than half a dozen extraordinary bands play at the Muffatwerk for the anniversary, that is above all an opportunity for us Westerners: “Africa has always been a stylistically pioneer,” says Cording. “Could be that we will hear similar sounds in Europe in five to ten years.”