Conversations: A cross-cultural Musical project
from africa to alaska
I’m so excited to announce the launch of our Kickstarter Campaign for
“Conversations”: A Cross-Cultural Musical project
from Africa to Alaska.
In my adventures working musically around the world, this past year brought me to Uganda, where I spent over a month working on a program with musicians in Kampala. I wound up having my trip unexpectedly extended even further, due to some unforeseen circumstances. In this period, I started an independent collaborative project with two incredible musicians: singer, songwriter and guitarist Andereya Baguma and producer Joses Arins Emanzi.
Andereya and I bonded over a shared love of different cultures, philosophy, languages, and, of course, music. After years of COVID-19 isolation, songwriting together inspired many conversations about what connects us and what we owe each other in our own local societies, as well as the global community at large. These conversations developed into a true cross-cultural musical collaboration, incorporating both Ugandan and American language and traditional musical styles. (Yes, I sing in Luganda!)
Here is a video from our time working together on our first single, this July.
There was only time to write and record one song in person in July, and since then, we have been composing together virtually from across the planet. This project aims to reunite all of us this December in Uganda, to complete the EP album together in Joses Arins Emanzi's recording studio, Mulika Studios. Another component is to perform the project live on January 28, 2023 in a multi-language, multi-cultural performance with a band of Ugandan traditional and fusion musicians at Nyungu Yamawe Forest Park in Kampala, entitled “Embozzi Z’ekyooto” (“Bonfire Conversations”).
Our budget includes the expenses to hire numerous local Ugandan musicians to record and perform with us, as well as to hire recording engineers, graphic designers, photographers, and more - thus providing much-needed opportunity to fund the talents of many brilliant artistic minds in a country where funding for the arts is virtually non-existent.
The average musician in Kampala makes less than $200 a month. This is hardly enough money to pay rent and pay for basic living expenses, much less afford health care, basic technological needs, and other expenses to continue producing new music. On top of this, COVID-19 lockdowns in Uganda forced all musicians out of work entirely for years; and with new outbreaks and lockdowns looming, performance and funding opportunities are dangerously limited.
Our goal is simple. Expanding our capacity to understand and care for each other beyond cultural, linguistic, gender-based, and socio-economic borders is uniquely possible through music. We wish to share the connective magic we experienced through music with as many people as possible. We also wish to give back to a community that needs our help - Andereya, having grown up in the slums of Kampala, requested that a percentage of the proceeds from album sales be dedicated to a trusted charity that supports homeless children and youth in Uganda.
Music is truly the Universal Language. In a time where we all need each other more than ever, we wrote these songs about connection, love, life, challenge, hope, and finding a way. Please help us find our way, across thousands of miles, over linguistic and cultural boundaries, through financial challenges...to bring this music to life.