Chicoco Radio – a participatory project in Nigeria

I’m in Nigeria, courtesy of the British Council and Arts Council England, to work with the amazing Chicoco Radio project in a city called Port Harcourt. The project has huge ambitions, centring around building a structure over a small lake at the epicentre of a series of informal settlements, which will broadcast local radio and television made by local residents. I will be working with around 45 in the next fortnight, facilitating spoken word and song writing, recording and production, culminating in a performance.

On my first morning, I met the team and conducted an impromptu music salon in which we played music and discussed how African music and culture travelled to North and South America. We talked about Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, and how the melancholy of the blues (for who would not be blue when displaced from their roots?) gave birth to rock and roll, and in fact all of pop music. In our wide ranging discussion, we talked about Billy Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’, and – through watching Ibeyi’s powerful song ‘River’ – we talked about Yoruban chants, and why water is such a vital force of nature. We also looked at how Christian baptism may have had its roots in older rituals from the continent.

In the afternoon, we prepared a song to sing at the candlelit vigil for a young local musician that evening. The vigil was attended by around 500 people. There was comedy, music, prayer and dancing, and our performance went down well.

It’s so good to be back on home soil. There is a part of me that will always call this continent my home. The red earth; air so thick, so redolent with fertility, that you could stir it with a spoon. Flowers, fruit, birds everywhere; and there is nothing that brings me more inspiration than the people. They shine. Whenever I come back here I am proud to remember that part of me will always be an African man.