Spotlight: Africa Oyé 2022

First published at Songlines.co.uk.



Many festivals have cultivated their own community, one that exists for three or four days of reunion within a tented city before dispersing until the same time next year. It’s special, but ephemeral. Africa Oyé isn’t quite like that – it’s a treasured part of the wider, year-round community of the city of Liverpool.

Africa Oyé is a festival that provides a weekend of wonderful African and Afro-diasporic music for the people of Liverpool every June, completely free. Now in its 30th year, and returning for the first time since 2019, the 2022 edition is set to be particularly special – surrounded by a whole year of celebratory concerts and events across Merseyside.

The festival started in 1992 as a series of gigs in Liverpool’s city centre, and eventually became part of a hot-air balloon festival across the Mersey in Birkenhead. From his first Oyé in 1998, artistic director Paul Duhaney saw the potential for something more. “I quickly realised that most people were into the music than they were into the balloons. Why don’t we just do this in Liverpool, where the black community, and all communities, can access the festival and make it grow a bit more? So we did.” After a few more years, the festival settled into its permanent home in the luscious Sefton Park, where it has continued to grow.

Oyé’s line-ups are never less than stellar, and they’re selected with such precision that after 30 years of curation, there’s some music that just has an indelible Oyé vibe – music that sounds like fresh grass, sun and barbecues. Duhaney’s job must be a difficult one, but he lays it out in simple terms: “I think the decision is based on ‘is this band going to make people dance and enjoy themselves and be happy?’ If they fit that criteria and they have good quality as well, then that’s the final call.” This year will see African legends such as Oumou Sangaré and Kanda Bongo Man as well as a rare fully-live set from British-Ghanaian Afrobeats star Fuse ODG and a host of tasty new discoveries from across the continent and further afield. Eek-a-Mouse takes the festival’s traditional Saturday night reggae headliner slot, which always closes the festival's first night with a bang.

But while the music is the big draw, what makes Oyé special is the community vibe – and for Duhaney, they feed into each other. “The music on-stage plays a big part in the ambience you get in the audience, because it’s all about happiness, positivity, joy, peace, love, inclusivity. Everybody that goes to that festival feels like they should be there, and that’s an important factor.” In Sefton Park, it truly is an all-encompassing crowd – huge family gatherings, local teenagers, veteran world music fans, people just looking for a fun, no-stress weekend. There are no fences around the festival site, so anyone in the park at the (usually sunny) weekend can hear the sounds and wander in to join the party, partake in some delicious Caribbean food, and become one of the family.

It’s that welcoming, community-driven nature at the core of the Oyé experience that has earned its place in Scouse hearts (and a spot on the official Liverpool-themed Monopoly board). In a city known for its warmth, camaraderie and humour, Africa Oyé really shows the best of Liverpool alongside the best African music and culture.

Photo: Africa Oyé 2019, by Mark McNulty.

Cabralista Collectives: Dispatch from Porto, Portugal

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 177, May 2022.



Two artists performing in the same city, on the same night, in different venues, making very different music but with the same totemic figure in their hearts.

Bandé-Gamboa and Scúru Fitchádu were both in Porto in October, invited in front of the assembled world music industry as part of WOMEX 21. Bandé-Gamboa is a project fusing Cape Verdean funaná and Bissau-Guinean gumbé in a modern take on the classic dance-band format; Scúru Fitchádu also uses funaná, but takes it into the loud, aggressive and hyperactive world of punk, metal and electronica. Both hold a common core – the work of Amílcar Cabral.

Cabral was one of the great African revolutionaries, an anti-colonial thinker and a noted poet. In organising against the colonial power of Portugal, his dream was to unite Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde into one nation of differing but complementary halves. He was assassinated in 1973, but the independence movement he spearheaded continued in earnest. Within three years, both countries had won their freedom from Portugal – albeit as two separate, independent nations. Cabral remains a crucial figure and cultural touchstone within those countries and across the continent.

Scúru Fitchádu is the solo project of Marcus Veiga. Born in Lisbon to Cape Verdean and Angolan parents, Veiga grew up hearing the wisdom of Cabral. “The entire narrative involving Cabral was recurrent whenever there was talk of the colonial war and independence,” he says. “As a teenager, I didn't pay much attention, but when I started to wake up to conscious hip-hop and punk, I started to research revolutionary movements. It was from there that everything became clearer: Amílcar Cabral was a major figure in the struggle for the independence of the African people. He played an important role in ending the colonial power.” It was those awakenings that allowed Veiga to explore his own roots, musically and politically. Funaná is party music – based around fast-paced accordion and iron scraper – but it’s also a symbol of resistance. It reflects the blues of everyday people and was banned under colonial rule. With Veiga’s unique mix of powerful, punky, political party music, it was unquestionable that Cabralista philosophies would be at the centre: “The whole combative attitude directly draws on the liberation movements of Amílcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon and the Black Panther Party. I was born and live in the country that colonised, humiliated, kidnapped, raped and murdered my ancestors. I always try to establish a parallel between African guerrilla decolonisation movements and the present day, by writing verses or using samples that elaborate ideas of physical and mental colonial liberation. Here lies my manifesto. It opened doors for the way I make my art, and gave me ethical principles for how I live my life. Similar to so many others who have Cabral as a reference, we find guidelines for good conduct in his work as a strategist, writer and poet.”



Cabral’s post-colonial vision also inspired the founding of Bandé-Gamboa. The project started as an album by two all-star bands: one from Guinea-Bissau on Side A, one from Cape Verde on Side B – a reflection of Cabral’s ambition of the two countries united. The album was released in 2020, and the project has since evolved further, joining the two bands into one for live performances. Bandé-Gamboa was the brainchild of Portuguese producer Francisco ‘Fininho’ Sousa, who explains how the figure of Cabral is central to his work: “Cabral did not intend to dilute Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau into one identity; he celebrated the diversity and difference between the countries. We do the same. This project aims to respect the culture, but refuses to look at culture as static. It always evolves. That’s where Cabral comes in. He said that revolution was a cultural act. We place the future of the music in the hands of the most talented musicians, exactly where it should be.”

Fundamental to both Veiga’s and Sousa’s musical messages is the erasure of African struggles within the histories and education of Europeans. Scúru Fitchádu and Bandé-Gamboa are taking over where schools in Portugal are failing, by bringing Cabral and his teachings to wider attention, and with it broader topics of African liberation and anti-colonialism. “The narrative that was given to me in schoolbooks showed the Portuguese Empire as a sophisticated and benevolent coloniser of the wild, limited, disposable Africans,” says Veiga. “That story is still told in schoolbooks and Portuguese civil society today.” And Sousa notes that that vitriol extends to Cabral himself: “The difference between what I had been told his ideas were – shallow revolutionary rants – and what they turned out to be – beautifully written, innovative, deep humanist ideas – is a measure of the cultural bubble us Europeans live in. We are born in an epistemic prison. In many ways, he liberated me.”

Bandé-Gamboa and Scúru Fitchádu make very different music, but bring their audiences into the same anti-colonial collective. On a Saturday night in October, Porto – once one of the most important cities of the Portuguese Empire – was rocking to the message of the hero Amílcar Cabral.


Photos: Scúru Fitchádu live at WOMEX 21, by Yannis Psathas; Bandé-Gamboa, by Patricia Pascal.