Category: Writing

All written work except blogs

BLICK BASSY: Simonobisick’s Letter

Simonobisick is a character from Blick Bassy’s novel ‘Le Moabi Cinema.’ This letter from the novel, which Simonobisick writes to his mum, reads like a statement of Africa’s frustrated youth.

The Bataclan and the battle for music

Anyone who walks out onto any stage – in Paris, or London, or Madrid, Melbourne, Mumbai and Osaka – is now in the front line of a battle. Music itself is on the front line. Take courage. We’ve got to win. The alternative is too bleak to contemplate: a life without joy, relief, togetherness. A life without music.

Yakala 'Coco' Ngambali (c) Renaud Barret

If the master plan succeeds, Mbongwana Star could become the Trojan Horse that penetrates the bastion of the world’s indifference (and revulsion and paranoia) and lifts the curse to bring that creative power out of rue Kato, the Beaux Arts, and other parts of Kinshasa. “The Beaux Arts is like a town within a town,” says Renaud. “Mbongwana Star has started rehearsing there and there’s a correlation with visual artists, stylists, people working on logos etc. It’s this kind of electric movement, this new vibe in Kinshasa that we’re trying to mix in with the music and the image.”

“I think we’re lacking a lot of tolerance,” says Souad Massi, “and I think that we must give the power to the learned people in Islam… They’re the ones who will show us the way.”

Finding The One – Songlines Review ***** (17/07/2014)

Please click on the image to enlarge

You don’t pair the greatest young harpist in Wales with one of the most innovative kora players from West Africa for the purposes of relaxation. Their music is too deep, full-blooded and fragile for that.

All the musicians I spoke to agreed; Mali without music would be like Egypt without cotton, a bird without wings, a man without a soul.

Here’s a selection from a series of photo sessions I did in 2013 of Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita live in concert in Nottingham, Cardiff and Cardigan.

Bombino at home in Niamey, 2013. Slider Image. Photo: Andy Morgan

What’s more extraordinary however is Bombino’s fame at home. He’s become a bona fide head-turning airtime-hogging star in his own country, not just amongst the Touareg, who mainly live in Niger’s northern deserts, but amongst the youth of the entire nation. That’s something that no other Touareg artists has ever managed to do, not even Tinariwen.

If the musicians in the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste are masters of individual survival, the orchestra itself is an epic example of debrouillardise, of thinking the impossible and then just doing it.