‘High time for a new narrative’
(Report WMF panel at inJazz- June 27, 2024- Lantaarn/Venster- Rotterdam)
Introduction
Whereas 100 years ago, the breakthrough of Afro-American (jazz) culture in New York began with the Harlem Renaissance, today African culture is experiencing its own Renaissance – but now on a global scale. Especially in jazz and pop, this African Renaissance can be heard and seen. African artists are receiving Grammys and Oscars, Burna Boy is in Time Magazine’s top 100 and he effortlessly fills entire stadiums. Blue Note Records launched Blue Note Africa, and with significant reissues, labels like Analogue Africa and Soundway are rewriting African pop history. Meanwhile, afrobeats and amapiano dominate dance floors everywhere. Even at Jazzahead! (Bremen, April 2024), three bands and two panels focused on African jazz for the first time. How to interpret these developments and what do they mean for musicians, agents and venues?
Presentation
Using pictures and album sleeves MC Stan Rijven showed a quick summary of African popular music. “Africa is not a country but a huge continent with many different cultures and music styles. Since colonialism also divided into anglo-, franco- and lusophone Africa”.
Music slang words such as boogie, funk, jam en mojo are from African origine: “Even the word jazz itself derives from the Congolese Ki-kongo language”.
To underline the importance of African popular musics Rijven mentioned Unesco’s recent recognition of Ghanean highlife, Congolese rumba congolaise and Capeverdian morna as immaterial heritage.
Panel members
– Dudu Sarr (*): Dakar Music Expo, manager Youssou N’Dour (SEN)
– Stefanie Schumann: booking-agent Delicious Tunes (DE)
– Bounaly: Djam!– guitarist (MALI)
– Joep Pelt: Djam!– afro-exploring guitarist (NL)
– MC: Stan Rijven- music journalist, World Music Forum NL (NL)
(*) present by video
As intro & outro of the panel discussions the DJAM!-guitarists gave two wonderful acoustic showcases. Pelt: “We found each other through internet. Bounaly is the best guitar-talent of North Mali. He mixes hypnotic Sahel sounds with the rousing rhythms from Bamako”. Bounaly, cousin of Afel Boucoum: “I keep this music alive for my community, for my people and the world”. Video Djam!
Panel discussion
The question ‘How to interpret these developments and what do they mean for musicians, agents and venues?’ was devided in:
1) Image & representation of African music; 2) Role of social media.
1) Image & representation of African music
Schumann: “Just visited Lagos to connect with the scene. Since the last three years there is a huge explosion of afrobeats all over the world. It became mainstream, lots of people are listening and it sells lots of tickets. Besides Youssou N’Dour I have never seen this happening before with African artists”.
Sarr: “We have to find a new narrative. I was part of the collective African stand at Jazzahead as an effort to finally bring jazz home. You can’t talk about jazz with no representation of African jazz. With the organization we agreed to give it a platform in Bremen where professionals were able to see three great bands from Senegal, Nigeria and Kenya”.
Pelt: “For over two decades I worked with musicians from Ethiopia, Mali and South Africa. I found Bounaly at Instagram, started to collaborate at distance. Now we are touring the Netherlands with 30 shows. So, there is real new interest in African music for a whole new audience. You don’t have to play traditional but to do the opposite”. Bounaly: “The political situation in North Mali is bad but in the South, and especially Bamako, very vibrant”.
Talking about the image of African music, a quote from Dudu Sarr in 2005: ‘I think there is a peculiar understanding of Africa and its peoples. To a lot of Westerners, Africans should all be playing koras and balafons. Africans have the right to express themselves using a variety of instruments, including synthezisers. But the worldmusic business marketing machine has created a pre-defined view of what good African music should sound like’ (Songlines, March/ April 2005).
Sarr’s comment: “When I look at the whole explosion of new genres of electronicly infused music like afrobeats from Nigeria or amapiano from South Africa, this is the biggest we can for afrobeats. Today in Portugal live 30.000 kids largely from African descendant whith a completely new line-up of African artists from which hardly anybody is coming from that generation of 20 years ago. I am very happy to see that because this is what I talked about in the article. African music was for a long time pigeonholed and boxed into instruments like balafon, sabar or ngoni. Rightnow with mobile phone and internet you can have access to all sorts of music or built an audience worldwide. When you have a country of 200 million like Nigeria the demographics speak for themselves, it’s exploding, that is why. We don’t have the gatekeepers anymore”.
Schumann’s experience: “A lot of times I was seen as very exotic although I might not look like it with my blond hair. At jazz conferences I was one of the few people presenting African artists where the answers mostly were ‘Oh, this is too much worldmusic’ and at world-conferences while presenting African jazz acts ‘Oh, this is too much jazz’. But I feel it is changing since we started this Jazz From Africa initiative at Jazzahead. Like North Sea Jazz which invited great names from the continent not so much festivals were that open. Still there is a lot of lobbywork and education to be done. Later when these artists are invited it speaks for itself because it is powerful and audiences love it. We see how the energy follows the attention”.
Bounaly, on the reception of his Dutch tour: “The audience is really responding at our music, they dance and love it. However here I play gigs of 1,5 hours instead of 8 hours in Mali”.
Pelt: “I love music from many African countries but never knew what they were singing about. What we also try to bridge with our DJAM!-project is the language-gap by translating the lyrics in our clips to make our music more accessible for everybody, also in a cultural sense to explain the nuances”.
2) Role of social media
Recently Dudu Sarr stated that the African Renaissance is enabled by technology, how?
Sarr: “In terms of capacity building and learning internet, Youtube and Google have given access to information whereby 20 years ago that would not be able. With the democratization of production tools, look to countries like Nigeria or South Africa, young people grab it and ran with it. Anyone with a computer or a midi-keyboard can produce music. When there is democracy in distribution networks you can built an audience. So a young beatmaker of the suburbs of Capetown or Johannesburg can reach another young kid from Chicago and built a worldwide community that congregrate on the Algarve coast”.
Data-analyses is also becoming an important tool for agents and managers, Schumann: “There is a tool called Soundcharts. Create an account, type in an artist name and make a choice. You can choose, like ‘the last 28 days your audience’, and filter it by country. It gives you the top countries of the artist in the last 28 days like followers, listeners, streaming numbers. It helps navigating your artists. For instance in Berlin they have 100.000 listeners but only 20.000 in Munich, so there you better choose a smaller venue”.
Or, check out a band in Africa itself. Sarr: “Come to Senegal, come to Africa! For a longtime the movement has been from the south to the north. We are now encouraging music progammers. If I cannot bring fifteen African bands to Eurosonic in Groningen, maybe I can bring fifteen programmers to Dakar when it is cold in your February”.
Conclusions
– 100 years after the Harlem Renaissance in New York, an African Renaissance is happening but now on a global scale
– Africa is not a country but a continent with thousands of languages & peoples
– we have to find a new narrative
– now is the moment for the West to open its ears & eyes
– the African Renaissance is enabled by technology
– Africans can tell their own side of the story: no gatekeepers any more
– after hundred years black music goes full circle: jazz, blues, rumba, soul, highlife, morna, reggae, salsa, funk, disco, hiphop, raggaton, afrobeats, jazz, etc.
Stan Rijven
photo’s panel Eric van Nieuwland
