CityLife

African Soul Rebels 2010: Oumou Sangare + Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou + The Kalahari Surfers

African Soul Rebels
Bridgewater Hall
February 28, 2010

For a night replete with social commentary and politically orientated African acts crashing off each other as counterpoints, one particular quotation sheds light on our own society:

“We didn’t know we could have a life out of Africa," state the phenomenal opening act Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo, hailing from Sun Saharan Benin. “We thought we should give everything to our own country, we didn’t know we could give something to people from a different culture."

It’s this same retiring attitude towards politics, underpinned by a feeling that we can no longer change the status quo that has lead to our current political crisis - a sense that we, as voters, are powerless, when we are not.

But above this, with tonight’s fearlessly political acts, we have to ask where are our fearless modern day versions of The Clash and The Sex Pistols to lead us out of political indolence?

The Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo face the threat of Voodoo priests in their native homeland of Benin, yet despite the release of over 100 albums since the 1960s, they march on with all the youth and indomitable of The Arcade Fire, using the power of their combined voices to create something similarly, massively stirring.

Employing Afrobeat, funk and Soukous they create a jovial rhythm that makes it feel like something of a crime to be playing such dance orientated music in a seated only venue (albeit a very fine one).

Stunning

And combining rousing choruses with The Doors style freak outs they transcend the invisible barrier between rhythm and melody to create something masterfully compelling.

The Kalahari Surfers, who take us from Benin to South Africa in one quick step spanning thousands of miles, are a far more modern act. Traditional instruments are replaced with laptops resulting in an ominously heavy doom-laden beat, reminiscent of the paranoid antics of Massive Attack.

Their track titles are bleak - Blackness And Light and Child Soldier - and such dark moods after the joyous OPR would be better employed at 3am rather than 9pm.

Oumou Sangare, of Mali, lifts the mood quickly and effectivelyback to its emphatic, rightful place. Starting out as a street singer at the age of five, she has crafted herself into something of an embodiment of the struggle of feminism against traditional values.

“In my country," she says, “We have marriage by love and by force. I say no marriage by force. We need your love men."

Such a message might be a turn off for some, but she then launches into such a stunning performance that she quickly has the whole audience dancing, clapping and revelling.

All of which brings me back to my original questions. Where are the modern British bands like those truly excellent bands exhibited tonight, like The Clash, that managed to waken a generation to the combined power of music and politics? 

There is a gap here, which needs filling...desperately.

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