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all aboard it was the ultimate jam session. one train, packed with 80 musicians making sweet harmonies as they travelled around the uk. take your seats for the africa express Words amar patel PHOTOgraphy simon phipps
drumming to a new beat: damon albarn, baaba maal and members of jupiter & Okwess International jam at leeds city station
1960s Class 47 locomotive pulls into a bustling station in Glasgow, Scotland. Decorated A with flags of more than 30 African countries and with red wrought-iron signs at either end, reading ‘The Africa Express’ in gold lettering, the train is an intriguing mix of the traditional and the modern. The doors open and out pops the most unconventional stream of passengers you’re ever likely to see. South African MC Spoek Mathambo, peeking out of his visor cap, is chatting with London grime MC Afrikan Boy, while leather-clad former Libertine Carl Barât strolls past, an axe strapped to his shoulder. To his left is Malian ngoni master Bassekou Kouyate and Amadou Bagayoko of internationally acclaimed duo Amadou & Mariam. Next to disembark are Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara, Jon McClure of UK band Reverend and The Makers, US-based Ghanaian MC M:anifest and Senegalese musical royalty in the form of Baaba Maal. There are over 80 musicians on board, representing more than 30 countries in Africa. No wonder AE’s cofounders – promoter/manager Stephen Budd and journalist Ian Birrell – are looking anxious. Theirs are the stress-induced expressions of teachers on a school trip. The plan, albeit a largely unwritten one, is to take this star-studded band of musicans across the UK in one week, stopping off at various cities – including Bristol, Carlisle, London, Middlesborough and Manchester – and conducting several pop-up shows on platforms and in factories, schools, town centres and clubs along the way. En route, they’ll be jamming, collaborating and feeding off each other in preparation for their epic evening shows. By bringing African music direct to the people, in some cases even to their homes, the founders aim to gradually shift perceptions of the continent. AE started six years ago, initiated by Blur frontman Damon Albarn, together with Birrell, Budd and Wrasse Records co-owner Ian Ashbridge, and aimed to spark dialogue between Western musicians and their counterparts in Mali. It was Albarn’s passionate riposte to the marginalisation of African artists, such as Baaba Maal, in the build up to Bob Geldof’s Live 8 in 2006. As well as Glastonbury, Paris and La Coruna, Spain, AE has rolled into Ethiopia, Nigeria and DR Congo. Back in Glasgow, Albarn – the troupe’s de facto conductor – steps off the train, sporting a blue British Rail t-shirt and looking a little jaded. Rumour has it that the party lost Barât and Gorillaz keyboardist Jesse Hackett
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I love the idea of not allowing anyone to prepare. It forces them to rely on their instinct Damon Albarn
after the Middlesborough gig. Nneka is also unwell and both Baloji and Marques Tolliver have to hop off to perform solo shows in London. It’s a good thing they have strength in numbers. Squad rotation – to use an apt football analogy. AE is due to take the stage at the legendary Glasgow Arches in just over two hours. It’s a sellout and certain to be a crazy night – Glaswegians know how to party. But before that there is a pop-up show in the Students’ Union at Glasgow School of Art. THE LOVE TRAIN Apparently the train can only be at the station for 10 minutes and there’s a fine of £300 for every minute of late departure, so there’s no time to hang about. Onboard, each carriage offers something new; it’s like walking through different worlds. There’s a makeshift chill-out space with bean bags and rugs; an on-board massage team; several rehearsal spaces, including a reconditioned baggage car from the Orient Express; a Moroccan tea room; and a kitchen serving Ethiopian fare. Brighton’s chart-topping duo Rizzle Kicks are nearby. Are they enjoying their experience? “It’s been phenomenal,” says Jordan ‘Rizzle’ Stephens, beaming from ear to ear. “There’s so much adrenalin flying around. I remember our first rehearsal. We were just getting to grips with things. Someone was messing around on the drum machine, suddenly M1 from Dead Prez started rappin’, then M:anifest came in, followed by MC Karim from Arabian Knightz, then Martina Topley-Bird added this ‘la-la-laaa’, backed up by Romeo [from Magic Numbers] on guitar. This whole vibe emerged and I thought, god I need this. It’s that freestyle spirit, something that’s prevalent in Africa but less so in Britain.” Nothing is recorded on the train and that adds to the thrill. “I’ve thought, ‘we’ve just made a brilliant piece of music’, but then it’s gone, forever,” says Stephens. “I spoke to Damon and that’s what excites him. You could make about
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17 albums on this train if you wanted to.” Albarn, a lifelong advocate of high-stakes performance, agrees, “The show can’t be the same every time. I love the idea of not allowing anyone to prepare. It forces them to rely on their instinct, which is an important aspect of music that’s being lost rapidly. The premise for success now seems to be about doing the same thing all the time. This isn’t about success. This is about another side.” Later, at the Arts School Students’ Union, Mathambo is setting up along with beatboxer Reeps One, MC Karim, Tanzanian vocalist Mim Suleiman and Mikaiah Lei of The Bots. M:anifest greets the huddle of spectators, enthuses about train travel and kicks things off. The show is brief but fun, with a few beats and rhymes numbers. Reeps keeping it going for more than 20 minutes as the MCs trade verses, followed by a hilarious new song from Mathambo called Sugar For My Candy. Over the course of four hours, the AE “experiment” (as Albarn calls it) moves from hushed anticipation, at the opening bars of Afel Boucom’s Gomni, to the riot that ensues as Maximo Park’s Paul Smith whips the crowd into a frenzy – leading an ensemble including London-based Ethiopian trio Krar Collective, talking-drum maestro Massamba Diop and Diabel Cissokho on kora. Despite a few stop-starts, punctuated by PA difficulties, the enterprise itself can’t be faulted and there are many triumphs. One of these is when Kinshasa’s shamanic sound archivist Jupiter Bokondji, with his band Okwess International, push the crowd from flat-footed shuffle to a state of joyous abandon with super-tough rhythms and incantatory chants. Things really get manic when the bagpipe players, who had earlier announced AE’s arrival in Glasgow, join the DRC heavyweights for one number and manage to coax high-pitched TB303-like, acid house basslines from their sweet, traditional instruments. AE is a chaotic beast, but doesn’t descend into complete anarchy, notes Mathambo: “Structures are adhered to but there is lots of cool stuff that happens within that. The train just isn’t as controlled an environment as the studio. Anyone at any time can come in and add their own thing to the mix.”
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1 1. Lukas Wooler (Maximo Park), spoek mathambo, Temesgen Zeleke (Krar Collective) 2. the train pulling into leeds station 3. Mamadou Sarr, M1 (Dead Prez), damon albarn, Mikaiah lei (The Bots) Massamba Diop, baaba maal 4. thandiswa and fatoumata diawara 5.amadou (amadou & mariam) 6. Shingai Shoniwa (noisettes)
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6 7. damon albarn and rokia traorÉ at middlesbrough town hall 8. baaba maal and band at middlesbrough town hall
INTERNATIONAL RAIL M:anifest – fresh off the stage after a rousing rendition of his defiant anthem Suffer alongside Ghanaian MC M3NSA, Romeo and The Temper Traps’ Tony Dundas and Lorenzo Sillitto – slouches down and sparks a cigarette: “For me, AE is a cross between a musical retreat and an intensive course. We are very 7
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comfortable together but we like to push our own limits and each other’s. Plus we get to experience collaboration the best way – live.” A big part of AE is giving an international audience the chance to see some incredible African artists: “In Ghana we have a saying; ‘something that has quality... markets itself’. With AE we are getting back to basics, putting artists in front of crowds, and allowing things to flourish more organically. No gimmicks. No genres like ‘world music’. ” “I love the idea of just getting up and doing it – as a community of musicians,” says Barât, who’s just finished performing a cover of The Clash’s Train In Vain alongside Amadou, McClure and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nik Zinner. “People [in the UK] are insular when it comes to music. And there’s this time-honoured rhythm and romance to travelling by train. You know, ‘chk-a-ha, chk-a-ha, chk-a-ha...’ If you’re stuck for ideas, you just go four seats down and something different is going on.” Amadou sums up the unique nature of AE: “The musicians from Africa get to play in a different context, with Western musicians, and vice versa. The more places we play, the better known our music becomes.” Perched on a chair in the makeshift kitchen, where Maal is helping himself to snacks, Rokia Traoré adds: “There is no pressure, only pleasure. It’s the pleasure of making music and sharing it with each other on the train, as well as at the concerts. This is my third time and it will be the best because it lasts a whole week... This is not the place to think how big a star you are or to wish you had time to yourself. We are all from different backgrounds so there must be a will to learn from one another – and there is.” The diversity of the group leads to the matter of working visas. If not for investment and the red tape-cutting potential of London 2012 (AE formed part of the Cultural Olympiad) the event may not have happened. “We do talk a lot about visas because it’s the single biggest issue where attitudes in Britain could change to help African musicians,” says Birrell. Visa issues aside, is he concerned about the lasting impact of AE? “I don’t think so because the artists get so much out of it and go on to work with each other... [Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist] Flea came to Lagos with us in 2008 and asked Femi [Kuti] to tour with the Chili Peppers in Europe. It’s bananas. Flea then went to Ethiopia with Chili’s guitarist Josh [Klinghoffer] and they wrote the song Ethiopia... Our role is to bring people together but from there [on] it’s up to them.”