J SLUGHT has received a lot of recognition for prominent outlet for his unique arts of music and to promote the Liberian culture. His style of teaching, coaching and performance has enabled people to learn about the cultural heritage of Libera through music.
After releasing the remix, lot of gurus within the music industry took to their social media pages, condemning the action by D12, DenG and others who felt offended by the Photo song.
Others noted that those artists (D12, DenG and others) who remix the song of their colleague are unfair to Takun J and Colorful, and the music industry at large, pointing that the song or the lyrics did not in any way refer to anyone, not even politicians that are now playing the song more.
While the debate is ongoing, another group of artists have come in defend of Takun J and Colorful, using the same song to get back at D12, DenG and others for remixing and making mockery out of artists who went through a lot to put Liberian music on par with other countries.Read our next edition for reason behind the Photo song.
A collaborative CD project (musicians of the Buduburam Liberian refugee camp, the Center for Youth Empowerment, a Liberian NGO, and the University of Alberta) drawing the world's attention to issues of conflict and forced migration in West Africa, while supporting a Liberian refugee community through music...
"Music is the best weapon to bring change and also bring peace to the world. I and the Blacks Unlimited wish these musicians in Buduburam refugee camp all the best in their endeavours." - Thomas Mapfumo, "the Lion of Zimbabwe".
Western listeners may be surprised that much of this music should sound so familiar, despite its geo-social remoteness. But this is the sound of young West Africa today, infused with local meanings, though West Africans themselves readily acknowledge its transnational dimensions.
In the vibrant Buduburam community, bright concrete houses with tin roofs are crammed together in an endless maze where dingy chickens, the occasional goat and forlorn looking dogs dart across haphazard paths. There is garbage strewn liberally over the dirt where water from the well or urine constantly trickle, weaving between the ditches. During the rainy season children run outside to bathe, grabbing every receptacle imaginable, digging holes they line with plastic bags to collect whatever water they can. Outside of the main strip, people squat over coals cooking corn or fish to sell, or washing laundry in buckets. The women are brightly clothed, children fastened to them snugly with multicoloured lapas. Around each corner you may hear heated discussion and hearty laughter, megaphone wielding street preachers, vendors pitching their wares or trotro drivers announcing destinations with competing insistence. And everywhere, at any time during the night or day, there is music: drumming, impromptu gospel, children singing clapping songs, or grainy highlife blaring from a radio as residents hum along.
Popular music has emerged within Buduburam Refugee Settlement, responding to musical inclinations of residents and the felt need to express individual and collective experiences of displacement, loss, reconciliation, and hope.
The University of Alberta, in a cooperative multi-faculty initiative involving faculty, staff, and students, produced and distributed a music CD, entitled Giving Voice to Hope: Music of Liberian Refugees, featuring 16 Liberian musical groups then residing as refugees in Buduburam. The music CD, including extensive liner notes, is a creative initiative to explore the social impact and realities of civil war and refugees, raising global awareness about Buduburam, conflict, and displacement in West Africa, while raising profiles of participating musicians, supporting them with royalties from CD sales, and generally encouraging music-making in the camp. Musical recordings represent life in Buduburam through multiple genres: traditional, gospel, hip hop, rap, R&B, and reggae.
--Thomas Tafirenyika Mapfumo, (born 1945), one of Africa's greatest musicians and composers, known as "The Lion of Zimbabwe" for his tremendous popularity and and the political influence he wields through his music.
The following links provide only 30 second samples; the duration of each track, together with language, is given in parentheses. Please note that all of this music was produced in the Buduburam camp, without any assistance from the University of Alberta!
Morris Haynes came from a musical family and began to develop his talents at a young age. As a skilled guitarist strongly influenced by Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, Morris incorporates highlife, jazz, and disco lines into his music. He has recorded an album in Liberia, performed educational songs about HIV/AIDS and polio, and written jingles for African radio stations. He hopes to one day have his own studio and radio station in Liberia.
S-Man, a former dancer in the traveling Liberian National Troupe, became a refugee at the age of 12 when he fled conflict in Liberia and Ivory Coast. S-Man used his musical talents to work with the international humanitarian organization, War Child, teaching Liberian refugee children traditional dance to give them a sense of direction and connect them to their culture. S-Man has trained in video editing and soap making, and hopes that when he returns to Liberia, he can help rebuild his country, empowering people by teaching them how to make soap.
Childhood friends Wesley and Alvin knew each other in Liberia, where they grew up listening to James Brown and Michael Jackson, and remember breakdancing at birthday parties. Despite many challenges, they remain passionate about music and dream of performing around the world, as well as managing up-and-coming Liberian hip-hop artists.
Comprised of over twenty members from different tribes, Calabash performs songs and dances from many counties, reflecting their diverse makeup and the desire for unity among Liberians. They consider themselves a good example of what can be accomplished when people overcome differences to work as a family. Guided by the belief that tradition can strengthen rather than divide people, and that all tribes have something to learn from one another, Calabash hopes to start a cultural centre in Liberia where they can teach disadvantaged children traditional music, dancing, and folklore.
The situation here is a challenge: people are starving and praying for a change, people had their families killed and this is a challenge to our musical soul. We can go days without eating, but music gives us strength, our souls are quenched with song.
With his love for music beginning when he was president of his class choir, Helbert continues to compose and direct a choir today. Despite being orphaned and disabled in the war, and spending years in various refugee camps in West Africa, Helbert has always kept his faith in better days ahead. He credits music with saving him from despair and opening his heart. Herbert hopes to continue singing and would like to work in a home for disabled children, helping to prove to the children and the community that disabled people can be useful and innovative members of society.
A dancer in the 1980s, Alaric later began his musical pursuits working with choirs in Liberia before arriving in Ghana, where he now composes for churches in Accra. Portraying his African heritage in his music is important to Alaric, and he is glad to celebrate his Liberian identity by composing in his native Kpelle as well as in English. His unique brand of contemporary gospel features elements of reggae, pop, and hip-life.
Your purchase will support camp musicians and the Center for Youth Empowerment (now based in Liberia), and help build the Africa Endowment Fund at the University of Alberta, to support future educational and development projects in Africa.
The Buduburam CD is only the first in a series of projects all centered on popular music among current or former refugees. Here are a few other projects in the works under the rubric of "Giving Voice to Hope"...
Elliott Adekoya, 31, aka The Milkman, is a DJ at Monrovia's Sky FM radio, pictured here his DJ booth. He is also part of a group of 45 Liberian musicians called the Save Liberia Project. They want to get the word out that Ebola is real, but it is not a death sentence. He says that message, which was propagated early on by the Ministry of Health, actually contributed to the problem. John W. Poole/NPR hide caption
"It used to be a death sentence to people, so it scared people away," says Elliott Adekoya, a 31-year-old musician and disc jockey who works at one of Monrovia's most popular pop stations, Sky FM. "That's how people started running away, from one community to another. And people saw it worse, like a curse."
Some of the most popular Ebola songs get played repeatedly. The chorus of "Ebola is Real" wafts all over the city. But it's not just pop music that has taken on the epidemic. There are R&B songs, slow jams and Afro-pop tunes as well.
Adekoya, at Sky-FM, says music is having an impact. He says it is a way to express frustration and let off steam and a way to remind people to protect themselves from the disease. It's a way for Liberians to come together in the face of a terrifying illness.
b2107beecb