Africa Oyé
Sefton Park, Liverpool
17th & 18th June 2017
Africa Oyé has the rather clunky tagline of ‘the biggest live free African music festival in the UK’. All true, but it is also one of the best UK festivals full stop – a joyous celebration of music and culture and a true community event. Every year, an audience of families, friends and music fans of all ages and backgrounds head to Liverpool's beautiful Sefton Park for a weekend full of legends and up-and-comers of African and Afro-diasporic music.
The festival has long been seen as a jewel of the city’s cultural calendar, and with 2017 marking their 25 year anniversary, they pulled out all the stops for this special edition, inviting back some of the many stars who had graced the Oyé stage over its history. They were helped by some good luck, too. After last year's event was rather dampened by a torrential downpour, there was much relief that this year took place during June’s heatwave, and not a single cloud could be spotted all weekend. An estimated 80,000 people came by, making it the biggest edition yet.
The line-up featured twelve artists from eleven African countries – from Madagascar to Mauritania – as well as the UK and Jamaica, and special slots for community music and dance projects from across Merseyside. Unlike most summer festivals, though, missing an artist is not a problem at Oyé: there’s just the one stage, and the field is encircled some of the best Caribbean and African kitchens in Liverpool. They add the tastes and smells of jerk barbecues and curry goat to the colourful costumes, the beautiful sounds and the beating sun to complete the multisensory party.
Saturday set the bar with wonderful performances from Angolan semba legend Bonga and the new stars of Zimbabwean music, Mokoomba. Sunday, however, took everything to another level, every artist fitting the vibe to a T.
The day kicked off with the discovery of the weekend: the duo of Kenyan oud player Anwar Ali and British guitarist Dave Owen and their laid-back, romantic Swahili songs were a lovely start to a sweltering Sunday afternoon. The day continued and the knock-out acts kept coming, including the overall highlight, Jupiter & Okwess International. The powerful figure of Jupiter presided over some of the heaviest and darkest Congolese funk you’re likely to hear, and provided an interesting contrast with the band before, the Odemba OK Jazz Allstars, representing the DRC’s golden age of dance band music. Two groups playing very different takes on the same traditions, and both making the Oyé crowd bounce.
Filling Oyé’s traditional Sunday-night reggae headliner was the oft-sampled reggae legend Max Romeo. The singer’s Jah-laden roots music had the crowd – by now including a large portion of Liverpool’s Rasta community – dancing as hard as they had all day and brought the festival to a fitting close.
After 25 years of music and dance, and hopefully many more to come, a sunburnt and rather merry punter was the one to sum up just what the festival means: “I love Africa Oyé, it's like Christmas for Scousers!"
Photo: Odemba OK Allstars live at Africa Oyé 2017, by Mark McNulty.