Some Good Music Despite Live8

Tuesday 06.07.05, and I have had a double aural and emotional treat. I bought two new CD's.

The first I had heard of Lizz Wright was on BBC Radio3 last Saturday afternoon (02.07.05). She was being interviewed in between the playing of some tracks from her new CD 'dreaming wide awake'. Now I'm not usually a listener to BBC Radio3, except Late Junction for its eclectic mix of world music, but this was the day of concerts for ending African poverty and the only station broadcasting any musicians from Africa was Radio3. It's World Routes program was coming from the Eden Project in Cornwall where Peter Gabriel was hosting a hastily organised concert as an adjunct to the Live8 weekend.

More of this later as Lizz Wright wasn't appearing at the Eden Project but was on the following Radio3 program, Jazz Line-up. I would usually have switched it off not being a jazz aficionado but was to lazy to get up from the laptop. I'm glad I didn't.

After I had rolled the regulation medicinal joint, I put on the CD, 'dreaming wide awake' and settled back to listen to what I thought would be an enjoyable 50 minutes or so listening to some good music. It was more than enjoyable, it was one of those great aural treats. From the first guitar notes of the opening track - A Taste of Honey - I knew I was listening to something special, but then her voice started its interpretation and I was blown away. And the music built from there. Following tracks just seemed to get better , lifting me higher, wrapping and cradling me in a warm liquid quilt of sound. At one point I thought this can't be real, sound waves made by the human voice can't be having this effect - making time stretch - it must be the medicinal dope. The dope wasn't skunk or anything special, just the usual second-rate Moroccan that I've been smoking for a while. It could only be the music. For the next three hours all I did was indulge myself replaying the CD and have endorphins flood my brain. Listening to this woman could become addictive.

Lizz Wright has surrounded herself with brilliant musicians; Chris Bruce, David Piltch, Earl Harvin and Glenn Patscha and an exceptional producer in Craig Street, but this album is her voice. An album of love songs where even the sad love songs are life enhancing has signaled the appearance of a great new voice for my future listening.


What a start to Tuesday and I still had a new CD waiting for me, which I didn't dare put it on for a few hours for fear I would be disappointed. Which was a bit stupid of me really when it was Ali Farka Toure, one of the World's great guitarists and I adore a guitar played well. He's teamed up with the supreme kora player and fellow Malian, Toumani Diabate to record 'In The Heart Of The Moon', a CD of improvised duets. It is the greatest piece of sustained improvisation that I have ever heard and probably the greatest I will ever hear. And it's the first time they have played together. No practice, straight into it. On some tracks Toure lays down a delicious blues and then Diabate, and I have no idea how, finds a cascade of bright soaring notes, all individually plucked by flashing fingers from the 21 string kora which lifts the music - and ones heart - to previously untouched heights. Or Toure is laying down some startling riffs and Diabate plucks occassional notes of emphasis that create subtle changes in the phrasing of Toure's guitar. Throughout it all there is not one note of vain or envious competition between either musician. Stunning, soul-expanding musicianship. I could wear out this CD very quickly.

A brilliant day for music but also a day to question the antics of the organisers of Live8

Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate appeared together at the Barbican in London on the same Saturday (02.07.05) as the Hyde Park concert and which unfortunately I couldn't get to. One of the Make Poverty History concerts is going on a few miles to the west in Hyde Park on the very same day and they are not invited to play? In fact the dearth of African stars at any of the concerts around the world was so noticable and the vocal denunciations so fierce, the organisers of Live8 had to hastily concede another venue for African musicians. For some this compounded the offence and left the organisers open to accusations of 'musical apartheid' , a quote attributed to Andy Kershaw.

Peter Gabriel, one of the driving forces behind WOMAD, hosted the Africa Calling concert at the Eden Project. He thinks that Geldof made a mistake by not scheduling African musicians for the Hyde Park concert. "I mentioned it to Chairman Bob and he was of the opinion that with billions of eyes watching the TV, unfamiliar artists from whichever country would probably switch people off. I don't agree.", was his response when being questioned. Besides the right-on sarcasm of 'Chairman', I don't think Gabriel goes far enough with his criticism.

(One African musician did make the stage at Hyde Park, Youssou N'Dour. Along with Dido he did the superhuman and appeared at the Eden Project, Hyde Park and Paris on the same day. How one African musician can represent the musical diversity that is Africa is beyond me.)

The mindset that excludes African musicians from the main stages and relegates them to a backwater, even if that backwater is the stupendous Eden Project in Cornwall, smacks of racism.

500 hundred years of white exceptionalism - racism - has been used by those in power to divide the poor and 'legitimise' the slave trade and its modern equivalent - debt bondage - that is driving Africa further into poverty. The super-profits from the slave trade, besides making the then already rich aristocracy in Britain obscenely wealthy, was also invested in the research and development necessary for the industrial revolution to take off. Advanced industrial capitalism was built on slavery and racism and the white overseer's whip. Racism is integral to capitalism and racist ideology has become so embedded in the psyche of the white west that even well meaning people will blame the situation that Africa faces on the African.

The most recent announcements by Blair or Bush on debt relief do nothing to ease the burden but in fact make it more onerous. Debt cancellation, for whom it has been agreed is being tied to privatising their services and resources so that multinational corporations based in the rich countries can expropriate African services and resources more easily. Even aid to Africa is tied to buying products at inflated prices from the 'donor' nations. Hypocrisy or what?

It is not possible to work through the G8 when the G8's policies are designed to make the poor poorer. The struggle has to be against the G8, to de-legitimise and destablise their authority. The whole strategy adopted by Geldof et al has been one of co-opting the genuinely felt disgust by millions of young people at the actions of the rich nations in their subjugation of Africa, to an agenda determined by the very same rich nations responsible for the poverty that wracks the people of that continent. It diverts any serious confrontation with the G8 into a feel good moment for the participants which will be soon dissipated in disillusion at their inability to change the policies of the G8. How often have we heard, 'we tried but it didn't change anything'. Exactly the outcome wanted by the criminals gathering for the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

The picture of Geldof nestling his head in the shoulder of the war criminal Blair speaks volumes. Never trust anyone who accepts a gong from the British establishment.

Going by the pictures in the press and on the internet (I don't have a TV), very few Black British seemed to be in attendance at the concerts or marches over the last weekend. I wonder why?