GREEN OWL
BY ARTISTS FOR ARTISTS
The Very Best
Full Text
“This is the police. The party is over.” It’s 2:30 AM and the constabulary have come to eject a hundred-plus revellers—mainly inebriated artsy kids in smash-and-grab ensembles of nu rave, boho and other bugged out wears—from a squat party going off in an unused toilet factory in South London. Among the throng are Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron of London-based production outfit Radioclit and their latest protégé, Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya. Thirty minutes earlier, during Tron’s DJ set, Mwamwaya performed an impromptu PA of his song “Tengazako”—“Take what’s yours” in Chichewa—a sweet afropop melody voiced over MIA’s Clash-sampling “Paper Planes” beat. The tune has created a load of internet hype around Mwamwaya and though no one at the party knew who he was or what the hell language he was singing in, they responded to it with the same fervor as they would a Klaxons or Simian Mobile Disco show. As the trio wades towards the exit through bottles, lolling bodies, broken hand fans and Mickey Mouse ears, they are accosted by a posse of dudes in the mold of Pete Doherty, who are propping up chicks in 1940s frocks and red lips. “Awesome sound, man…” says the least destroyed one. “No idea what you’re singing about…but fucking awesome sound.”After decades of being lost in the decidedly uncool and absurdly all-encompassing sonic terrain of world music, contemporary African sounds like kuduro and Cote d’Ivoire party music coupé decallé are suddenly on London’s radar. Unlike France, where African music is comparatively mainstream (in 2005 Malian duo Amadou et Miriam’s album Dimanche à Bamako reached number two and sold 300,000 units domestically), the UK’s immigration history has kept it a stronghold for West Indian culture with scant attention paid to Africa—until now. In the last two years, BBC 1xtra has launched a weekly African Rhythms show, new club nights like Kalabash and Out of Africa play upfront sounds from the continent, and in July 2007 the UK’s first legal African radio station, Voice of Africa, began broadcasting on 93.4FM. If there were an ideal moment for an artist like Mwamwaya to launch, it would be now. The fact that Radioclit—a production outfit on the frontline of adventurous pop music—have decided to record Mwamwaya for their first artist-driven album is a massive testament to that. As Tron says, “The time is now for African sounds.”
