Crossing cultural barriers through music writing
Music has no language barrier. Despite its different genres, music is the best way to connect people with a diverse background, different culture. This is why we brought together eighteen different individuals from three countries, Sierra Leone, UK and Iceland, and hosted them for one week in the first Music Writing Week ever held in Sierra Leone.
We set up four studios in a small resort on the beach just south of Freetown, the capital. Each day the participants worked in a different group of four to five people. They had space to jam, talk, exchange ideas, and, most importantly, create music. In the evening, the whole group got back together and shared the production of the day. There was no obligation to write or produce music every day, we left that totally up to the atmosphere in each group at each time.
The Music Writing Week turned out to be a huge success. The musicians, with all their different backgrounds, shared one passion: music. Imagine a blend of drums, vocals in five languages, synths, guitars (one hand-made), and a Fela Kuti-style trombone pouring out of the four studios. With elements of afrobeat, funk, jazz, folk, hip hop, fusion, and some UK rave flavors, we got a peek into the colorful map of the tunes these collaborations can shape. Perhaps more importantly, the artists shared knowledge with each other about different music scenes, success stories, and best practices.
Loverboy with his home made guitar
Using music to build a bridge
Aurora Foundation, a small NGO originally from Iceland but operating mainly in Sierra Leone, started a project in 2017 to build a bridge between the design industry in Iceland and Sierra Leone. Aurora had been supporting designers in Iceland and wanted to make a link between Iceland and Sierra Leone, the two countries it has been operating in. After a successful bridge-building in the design industry, there was ample motivation to do the same for the music industry.
Aurora had been supporting the music industry in Iceland for a decade and saw opportunities in collaboration between these two very different countries. In 2018, Aurora Music was launched to bring international artists, mainly from Iceland, to Sierra Leone.
Emma on the drums during Freetown Music Festival
Music plays a significant role in Sierra Leone, as it does in the rest of the continent. However, opportunities to perform, get exposed, and collaborate are scarce. Being exposed through the internet is extremely limited, with only around 16% of Sierra Leoneans having access to the internet, so local exposure is mainly through radio, with about 81% of Sierra Leonean people having access to radio. Furthermore, opportunities to get international exposure are limited. Due to the small number of credit card owners, access and participation in mass media-service providers such as Spotify are almost nonexistent.
To build the music bridge, Aurora Music teamed up with the group behind Freetown Music Festival and decided to hold this first-ever Music Writing Week in Sierra Leone.
Using music to improve the image of Sierra Leone
One important aim of Aurora Music is to help improve the image of Sierra Leone and promote tourism. Following the successful week in the resort, Aurora continued to cooperate with the group behind the Freetown Music Festival. The focus was on increasing the scale and international appeal of the festival through including a wider range of artists and arts to the program. The UK and Icelandic musicians from the music writing week were invited back to Sierra Leone to play at the festival performing in small groups the new songs from the collaboration, as well as their own music.
The connection between the participating musicians grew further during the festival, and the only logical way forward was to further promote this fruitful cooperation. Therefore, 12 songs out of the 22 composed during the week were chosen to be released. The name selected for the collective is OSUSU. The first song was released on Friday the 13th of September 2019, followed by a new song weekly for 11 weeks. The total album was subsequently released at the beginning of 2020. Alongside the album, a three-piece documentary series will soon be published in which the amazing journey of the artists has been captured.
To promote the release of the first song, a sold-out concert in London was organized on the 12th of September 2019, where a large proportion of the musicians met up for the third time and performed the songs on the upcoming album. This included some of the Sierra Leonean musicians traveling for the first time out of their country to play their music alongside the OSUSU songs.
The road ahead
Aurora Foundation aims to continue to support and work with musicians in Sierra Leone through Aurora Music. A big event was supposed to happen this June, as Aurora Music was collaborating with the Reykjavik Art Festival 2020, inviting two Sierra Leonean musicians from the OSUSU collective to perform at the festival. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the festival has been changed, and instead of two intensive weeks of Art, all the performances will be distributed over 12 months. It is our sincere hope that we will still manage to get the Musicians to Iceland during the next 12 months.
Regína Bjarnadóttir
Executive Director, Aurora Foundation
