BLKBOX

The Birth of a Nation is the talk of Sundance — and for good reason

Written by Eden M.

globalFEST’s mission is cultural, social and political. It aims to bring down boundaries between countries and create cultural opportunities for individual artists and for governments, sponsors, scholars and critics to collaborate. Tours and cultural exchanges that result from globalFEST¹s showcases have helped to build an ever widening audience for international artists and, by extension an increase in international cooperation and collaboration. This year, globalFEST 2016 boasts a line-up that includes African and Afro-diasporan musicians Fendika (Ethiopia), Lakou Mizik (Haiti), Somi (Rwanda/Uganda) and Colombian AfroChampetua band Tribu Baharú.

We were lucky enough to sit down with Lakou Mizik, a Haitian collective blending Troubadou, Vodou, Rara and Rap into a “deeply danceable bouyon of modern roots music”, for an exclusive one-on-one interview ahead of the festival and their New York debut.

Since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the country has been tagged as “the poorest country in the Western hemisphere”, introducing vivid images of poverty and disaster to a nation in recovery. Lakou Mizik, a Port­-au-­Prince band, seeks to change all of that. They effortlessly weave traditional Haitian genres into an artistic dialogue on cultural salience in a changing world. Drums balance and shift between the accordion and banjo in Peze Kafe. It’s reimagines traditional folklore through young voices and instruments cemented in Haitian music history.

Using the voices of Steve Valcourt or Nadine Remy, and the smooth drumming of Vodou drummer Sanba Zao, Lakou Mizik is giving the global arena a run for its money.  

Image via Plede Music

How do you maintain the essence of folk and protest songs in your music, when Haitian music is so diverse?

Steve Valcourt: At the beginning Lakou Mizik was a project. Because of the newer generation coming up, we’re losing the essence of what we are or what we used to be. What we have to do is preserve it. What we did is we went back and sought for all of the culture and the traditional ways we dress and the way we use music, the traditional way Haiti was before, and then see the difference between what we had and what we have now. Three generations after us we’ll probably lose all of that and we’ll probably lose Haiti between all of the news on TV, that’s when we sat and said “OK: let’s bring the real Haiti. We know Haiti culturally, the sympathy the love we have, all of this that the news isn’t showing the rest of the world.”

E: It’s been said your groups is re-imagining traditional music in the modern lens, but I wanted to know is there a process? What are the challenges of re-imagining your culture in a way that is trying to redefine the status quo?

S: There is that love between us. I think if we really find a way to make them {news, etc} remember what it is. People that do our kind of songs, our type of music­­­ it’s so political that it lost its essence of voodoo or essence of the culture. We’re trying to put that so the new generation doesn’t lose their originality, and show the world what is really Haiti, because yes we really have a good side of us that people don’t really know about.

E: It seems like a challenge to create a space for instruments that create distinct sounds. Is there a secret behind this?

S: Music is a language. Two people don’t talk at the same time. If you put them together and see what you like, there may be a lot of new things in our songs, but it’s harmony, meaning there’s a dialogue building between the instruments. The idea is that they all understand each other. It’s a harmony, a dialogue and a way of life too. I think the old nature is based on it.

E: Women played an essential role during the Haitian revolution and in reconstruction, so it’s only fitting that we have voices like Nadine Remy in this band. Does your band document the narratives of womanhood, or try to address that?

S: Around the world, women fight to do more but here in Haiti it’s even worse, because the job jobs and opportunities always go to men. Originally, it’s nature. You need to do the harmonies, it cannot be done without women. It’s really important to have that respect for their voice. There’s nothing that you can do if you don’t have their side. That balance is in life, music, nature and everything. In Lakou Mizik we really do that. I really think if we didn’t have Nadine in the band, we would lose something, a big thing, because that happiness..if you see us on stage, you see a family. I think women are very important. 

“I think Nadine’s role is more tied in a certain way with her background coming from the church, than her being a woman in the band. She’s really an amazing strength by herself in the band. She’s grown a lot in it, but I think that’s not her main focus. She gets treated so well within the group. She’s coming to grips with Haitian culture and particularly voodou culture spirituality side of it, and taking pride in it as Haitian culture as opposed to something to be afraid of or interpreting it as something she doesn’t believe in. It has been the bigger narrative for Nadine within the group. I would be false to say it’s something that gets discussed heavily. Our consciousness lie in the pride for Haitian culture and whether or not that’s represented through Christianity and culture or voodoo, or folklore.” – Zack Niles, producer

E: The earthquake branded Haiti as being the poorest nation in the hemisphere. It really gave Haiti this specific image from the global community. It sounds like the band’s hope is to shift the public gaze to the country’s rich music history. I was wondering: do you believe the globalFEST performance will be the first step to change the conversation?

S: I think globalFEST is a real opportunity to really show what Haiti is about culturally, and that’s the goal of Lakou. Lakou isn’t one person, it’s the whole country, it’s Haiti. We bring Haiti to you, and you enjoy it. The song, the culture, the way we talk. That’s what we hope to show. I’m sure we’ll have a nice combination of culture.

“One of the strongest emotions we can illustrate is an empathy of seeing yourself within another and sort of …when someone makes you dance or you’re impressed with how they make you laugh, or you see the love a band has on stage for performing or for each other, that already changes the dynamic of how people see Haiti. It’s sad that it’s so one-dimensional, but it is.

The news we get from Haiti almost 100% of it is about deplorable conditions that aren’t ever going to change and I think it’s really easy to be dehumanized in a certain way. Even the imagery makes you feel sympathetic. For me, sympathy makes you feel bad for somebody but you’re apart from them, as opposed to seeing yourself in them. For me, I really get being in globalfest and seeing people around the world and seeing Haiti through the lens of the band. It’s a first big step for us.” — Zack Niles, producer

E: Well, thank you for speaking with me.

S: Thank you, the pleasure was all mine.

Written by Nana Sir Osei.

Kenyan social commentator and artist Michael Soi is satirically documenting the political, social, economic and urban lifestyle in Nairobi with his colourful and catchy paintings. His bold and detailed paintings of half-naked, naked, well dressed women and men, and large portrait images embody his personal reflection of the contemporary lifestyles of people of Nairobi.

Like many African artists who use their works as public broadcast vehicles, and as mirrors to reveal their interpretations and understandings of issues around them, Soi is enthused by the routines of the Kenyan citizenry based in Nairobi where he resides.  

“I am motivated by the double standards of Kenyan life,” he admits. “I just love Nairobi to bits. It has so much to talk about as an artist or creative person. I Iove to document the lives of the Kenyan population.”

Michael’s paintings, which are mostly produced from acrylics on paper, look funny and slightly comical and cartoon-ish at first sight. However, underneath the simultaneously oversimplified and exaggerated physical features of his subjects lies a deeper understanding of the complex nuances of public and private social relationships. Each work of art is more than certain to leave his audiences highly engaged in thought, and publicly or mentally deliberating the themes he cheekily addresses. Corruption, socio-political matters, Chinese involvement and interest in Kenyan affairs, the treatment of women sex workers, sex tourism and many other social engagements that he observes in Kenya. 

According to Soi, these are the issues that Kenyans do not like to talk about. “I work on all the themes that people don’t want discussed,” he explains. “Commercial sex work, intergenerational love affairs, corruption, lousy governance among many other topics that hinder the social, spiritual and economic growth of an African country.”

In a chat with Afro Art East Africa, Michael said, “through his work, he is making a visual diary of Kenya so that two or three decades from now young Kenyans can get a sense of the Nairobi of today.”

Similar to Ghanaian music duo FOKN BOIS who are also satirically using their music to address social and political issues in Ghana, Soi is challenged by whether his audience agree with the messages beneath the visuals he produces. About the controversy, he says, “At the moment I am just documenting the happenings in Nairobi. I am sure people get my work but it isn’t always accurate to say that they agree with it because a lot of people love the truth but very few people live by it… art is about honesty. It is about telling stories. My stories are influenced by things i see in Nairobi despite the fact that they are stories that people feel that they are best left untold.”

One situation in Africa that has caught attention of many artists on the continent is the increasing number of Chinese people and their involvement in local businesses, and other illegal activities including shallow mining and sale of cheap fake African fabrics. In 2013, Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey and his GoLokal performance collective put up an enactment to address the Chinese involvement in Galamsey (a Ghanaian jargon for illegal mining) in Ghana. Michael Soi is another artist who has been critical of the Chinese people in Africa since 2012. However, unlike xenephobia that is rooted in an unfounded disdain for people of a particular ethnic or national background, these critiques raise fears that stem from colonial pasts and corrupt leadership.

According to a paper by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIA) on Chinese migration in Africa, it is estimated that there are one million Chinese nationals living in Africa. To Michael, the presence of “China in Africa” has been suspicious from the beginning. He believes the Chinese are only exploiting Africa, and many more believe African governments are both aware and involved in these activities. Thus, the relationship between African countries and Chinese institutions is more symbiotic than mutual. In 2012, he created a series of visual satires titled “China Loves Africa” aimed at interrogating Chinese interests in Africa, Kenya especially.

“This is a body of 40 pieces I created to interrogate the intentions of china with Africa. It is work that is based on conversations around Africa to whether china is helping Africa or helping itself with raw material from Africa.”

Beyond business and infrastructure, the influence and involvement of Chinese institutions in Kenya have seeped into the country’s art industry. Since 2013, Chinese artists have outnumbered Kenyan artists at the Kenyan Pavilion at Venice Biennale. In the said year, only two out of twelve selected artists were Kenyans. In May this year, the Kenyan Pavilion saw another Chinese invasion, even though the Biennale was headed by Nigerian Curator Okwui Enwezor. Yvonne Apiyo Braendle-Amolo was the only Kenyan on the list of seven artists, which included six Chinese artists.

This is a problem many Kenyan artists have individually and jointly protested. According to Michael, “the Kenyan art community went up in arms.” 

“I am not an optimist but more of a pessimist. We managed to go to Venice for the Biennale and a report was made on ways and means of having a proper Kenyan pavilion in 2017. We hope this will materialize and have Kenyan artists in our pavilion.”

In response to this, Soi created a four series satirical painting titled, Shame in Venice (seen partially above), to protest against the maltreatment of Kenyan artists at this year’s Venice Biennale. “Shame in Venice was created around the circus that was the Kenyan pavilion at the Venice Biennale. It was me shouting from the top of my voice from a rooftop on the misrepresentation that was taking place in the Biennale. Kenya has excellent artists and a vibrant art scene. I just did not understand what the Chinese were doing in our pavilion,” he stated.

An ardent user of social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, most of Soi’s paintings are first posted on his social media pages where he’s gained a good number of followers over the past year. He believes media is an important platform for artists to share their art with the world, evident in the engagement he receives on these platforms:

“Social media is a great thing. It has made the world very small. It has opened up numerous opportunities to alternative audiences to the work done. Personally, it has created an alternative audience to my work that i share daily on Instagram and Facebook. Used properly it has a lot of benefit to people seeking to show work to a global audience.” 

I really love this note-to-self by Octavia Butler. “So be it! See to it!”

The LAKE Magazine no.7 is out /