Save the best for last!
Solwezi, the smallest town we visited for the project of Kambisa, but the biggest in Music if you ask me…! Man, I got surprised everyday again by what I saw and heard. It’s unbelievable how much musical material we got from this town. From real traditional music until modern hip hop or pop to gospel, it was all here.
The number of participants to the OnStage project was, although it’s a small town, higher than in Lusaka and Livingstone. We were able to put up 3 good groups and we produced Hip Hop, Gospel and Pop music with them. It was hard work, but we managed to create three really nice songs. It’s nice to see those reactions of people. They are really surprised when they hear their own recordings and productions.
Besides these 3 projects we visited a community far isolated from any big town. Here we recorded after talking to the chef traditional music with drums singing and dancing. It became a big celebration in the village. A Kambisa celebration.
Also we recorded choirs who had never been recorded before. The results are stunning. And for the first time also a band with real guitars, drums, vocals, keys and percussion. All western instruments, but played in a real African way.
The outcome of the 2 weeks here in Solwezi is that we have over 15 recorded tracks with all their own story. Some of them are already shown to the public thanks to radio or the concert. The Gospel song turned out to be a song that everybody is really enthusiastic about. It’s a song about Zambia, it’s beauty and it’s natural resources produced in a really nice way. The reactions were so special that we decided to shoot a video clip of it so it can be shown on television. With this media the music will reach more people. Only time is running out. Tomorrow we start shooting the images. The day after we take the 12 hour busride to Lusaka again and we will edit the movie during this ride. At Wednesday we will have the video clip ready to be shown to the public. There’s one week left to see what the outcome will be. A great national song for Zambia, a great change for the group to expose themselves and be heard in Zambia, and a great change for Kambisa to show to Zambia what they can do with the voices of Zambian people.
It’s exciting to be part of such productions. We have some work to do now. No time, a lot of work. But we will manage, and wait with fingers crossed what the outcome will bring.
I hope to give you good news at my last report from Solwezi.
Kambisa!OnStage 2009
OnStage!Livingstone
Livingstone, different city, different people, and therefore also different music. In Lusaka we had 2 Hip-Hop groups, and 2 gospel groups. Here, we have only one group of 5 people. All are singers, same as Lusaka, but a nice change is that we have a girl among us now.
After listening to this group it soon became clear that this would become a totally different production that those we had in Lusaka. In Lusaka the people that participated on the project were clearly rappers doing Hip-Hop or clearly people that were into Gospel. Here were no such specialisms. Everybody had his or her own quality, so combining this in one song was a challenge.
Because we had no instrumentalist among us we made the decision not to use any instruments in the production at all. Be creative was the assignment I gave them. We are not going to produce according to a certain style with certain rules. We are going to use what we have in the group the way we want to use it. Be creative, and tell your story. We recorded all different humming noises. Also everyone made 5 different percussive sounds with just their own body. From this material we made a composition, and they group had a weekend to think of the lyrics they wanted to put into the song to give people their message.
We recorded those lyrics, some sang, some rapt, some talked, everybody had his own message in its own style. We made a chorus and took it all in the production again. The result was surprising for everybody. No one did a thing like this before. When we started they had no idea what this production was all about, but the song became clearer along the way and everybody got more enthusiastic along the way! They started hearing what they did and what they achieved. Totally their own sounds, no instruments, no other artist sounding the same. It was just them from the start until the end, and that’s something to be really proud of.
Erik van der Ven
Kambisa!Onstage 2009.
In our first week of Livingstone we explored the city for local internet cafes. Our primary task is to keep the Kambisa website up-to-date so our public knows what we are doing. While scouting the city, we got in contact with a local internet cafe and managed to make an arrangement. We helped and advised them in developing more, and in exchange we get to reserve the cafe to give trainings to our participants. We also arranged free (limited) internet for the Kambisa! crew in exchange for our knowledge. We attempted to upload pictures and blogs to the Kambisa! website with the internet access that we obtained from the internet cafe. Unfortunately, the internet connection here was also very unstable and unreliable like the ones in Lusaka. Because of this, it took us a lot of time, effort and by mostly patience to upload a few pictures and blogs to the Kambisa! website.
The second week in Livingstone..
Since we arranged workspace for our trainings, it was time to find participants. We found teenagers from the compounds of Maramba who liked to learn more about computers. Because the internet in Zambia is in development, it seemed us to be a good idea to show them more about the internet. Soon internet will be booming in Zambia, and it would be great to give some teenagers a push. In the first training, we explained the purpose of email and guided each individual through the process of making one and managing email. Even though we are aware that this might have been a step to high, the Zambian students proved to be quick learners and could easily top up with the lessons (ref: Lusaka). With their new email account freshly from the bakery, we were able to take it a step further and guide them with making their own myspace.com page.
The participants liked our trainings and will hopefully share their experience and new knowledge with their friends and families.
Kambisa! On Screen 29-06-2009
Today, we split our film crew, Marijn, Aziz, Viktor and me into two groups. This morning, Viktor and Martijn went to their appointment with our Zambian directors. They finished the script and putted the beautiful poem written by our directors together with the scene descriptions in a film script.
A little part of the poem our directors wrote:
In a day I was born.
With a bright new sun shining upon me.
I gave joy to my father and mother,
as I walked into the journey of life.
As we continued to move,
the lights went of.
Was it the darkness on my mind,
or was it happening?
I cried loud to my mother on the left,
But she couldn’t answer me.
I cried loud to my father on the right,
But he couldn’t answer me.
How could I find my way to destiny alone in a dark path like this?
This last question is actually the main subject of the film. It goes about the fights an orphan has to go through in Zambia to reach his or her dreams.
After that, Viktor, Martijn and our directors went to a school to arrange an audition there. We were looking for a 14 years old girl that could play the orphan in our film. Trough the phone, I heard that there was lots of attention, there were more then 100 girls interested to act in our film. So the casting directors selected the best girls and did a film scene with them. I don’t know yet who’s the final actress but tomorrow we’ll inform you about that.
Some audition pictures:
Aziz and me stayed in the guesthouse to arrange some technical stuff. Of course we don’t choose immediately for the most easy film to make a film, so this time we’re going to record our film in the dark. That’s difficult without the lamps we normally use in the Netherlands. Therefore we arranged two oil lamps today, and that’s already difficult to find here. Tomorrow we’re going to arrange 50 candles. When we’re going to record the movie, we’ll also use lots of flashlights.
ear to that, we finished an edit compilation of our documentary in Lusaka. Because we’re going to have a viewing tonight for all the Kambisa! people. In the afternoon, we worked on translating our script into a storyboard.
I’m going to finish my blog for today, we’ll keep you informed!
Greetz,
Karlijn.
