CULTURE: Many Notes, One Rhythm

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jess Smee

READING, Britain, Aug 2 2006 (IPS) - A Bollywood dance class, the tones of a Chinese bamboo flute, a Cuban cookery lesson, Saharan soul music and later some hip-swivelling to a Mexican Latino-ska outfit.

Last weekend the world shrunk to the 150-acre site of the Womad festival in Reading, about 50km west of London. Womad, which stands for ‘World of Music and Dance’, lived up to its initials, with some 80 bands from 40 countries performing over three days.

Founded in 1982, the Womad organisation has gone from strength to strength. What started as a niche concern has expanded into a diverse international network. To date, Womad has staged a total of 150 festivals in 27 countries, playing live music to some four million people, including both curious newcomers and dedicated world music aficionados.

“It’s amazing to get so many different musical flavours, and it’s very visual, a real multi-sensory experience,” said Jane Dow, sitting on the campsite with her 20-year-old daughter. “I’m here for my fourth or fifth year and it has grown in size but its personality hasn’t changed a bit.”

Among those entertaining sun-baked crowds in Reading this year were Salif Keita, currently Africa’s most famous singer, an electronic remix of tangos by the Paris-based Gotan Project and Anoushka Shankar, daughter of renowned sitar player Ravi Shankar.

Some 27,000 people travelled to the festival, sampling different concerts and workshops and, when the heat got insufferable, dipping into the Thames river.

Eclectic in the extreme, the workshops included the opportunity to play the embaire, a 15-foot long instrument usually played at weddings in rural Uganda. Elsewhere on site, Indian artists painted a Bollywood film hoarding, creating a massive depiction of Mughal-e-Azam, a Bollywood classic.

The sheer scale of today’s meticulously planned event was hardly imaginable back in 1982 when the first small Womad festival was held in Shepton Mallet in Britain.

Back then its founders had a tough time generating interest among the press and record labels. Womad’s artistic director Thomas Brooman said the festival’s fortunes took a turn for the better with the launch of the now ubiquitous “world music” label.

“When we started out there was no world music. Back then we were all finding that our music was being overlooked, for example, our African releases would end up ignored in the jazz section,” said Brooman who has been working for Womad for 24 years.

“From the moment the tag ‘world music’ was coined, there was a surge of interest in what we were doing,” he told IPS.

Brooman was among representatives of the music industry who met in a London pub in 1987 with the aim of marketing of their international music. After lengthy discussions, they voted to adopt the term “world music” as a category to be used by record shops.

The new pigeonhole stuck. Musicians and record labels agree that the genre helped consolidate an audience, thus propelling sales. However, it is not without controversy: some argue the tag should be ditched as it is so broad that it becomes meaningless.

Among those feeling patronised by the term is Angelique Kidjo, the West African songstress who spun to international fame more than ten years ago.

“I think it’s funny,” she told journalists assembled in a nomadic yurt tent at Womad. “Music that comes from poor countries is called world music. If we were speaking honestly, that label should include the Beatles and the Stones…human beings just like to categorise things. It gives them a sense of power.”

Regardless of how her music is categorised, Sunday’s concert underlined the devotion of Kidjo’s British following. Across the world she is recognised for mixing native Benin tradition with a touch of American funk and more recently, Brazilian and Caribbean styles.

But, like other developing world musicians, she finds it easier to tour abroad than at home.

“It’s a question of infrastructure and money,” she said. “You just can’t tour Africa in the same way that you can in Europe or America.”

But she at least was able to travel to the Womad festival without immigration problems. Other acts were not so fortunate: African star Thomas Mapfumo, now based in Oregon, and musicians from two other groups were refused entry into Britain by the immigration office – on fear they may try and stay on in the country.

That sparked disappointment from both organisers and fans, and served as a reminder of the challenges faced by musicians from the developing world.

And, given the tense backdrop of the war in the Middle East, politics was never far away from the Womad stages. During their flamboyant set, the Mexican group Los de Abajo chased a man in a George W. Bush mask from the stage, sparking cheers from the public.

For some, politics was at the heart of their music, like, for example, Emmanuel Jal, a former Sudanese child soldier who rapped out his passionate hopes for peace and non-violence.

Across the site at the One World tent, NGOs and international experts highlighted a range of international issues. Over the weekend, hay-bale seated audiences heard Amnesty International present Clive Stafford-Smith, lawyer for the Guantanamo Bay detainees, and member of the European Parliament Caroline Lucas urge action on climate change.

And for the thousands of Womad visitors, Brooman, the event’s artistic director, says gaining awareness of other ways of life is now more important than ever.

“At a time when cultural divisions and fear of other cultures and religions is running especially high, we try to counter that,” he said. “We do not preach but through the Womad atmosphere people can acknowledge and enjoy cultural difference.”