joint
mag14
Perspectives on German-African futures
november 2010
Culture
Editors: Alexander Schwartz,
Dennis Kumetat, Linda Poppe
Editorial Team: Keren Asante,
J. Bergmann, M. Gatobu, L. Tsebe,
B. Zasche, L. /Narib
AVAILABLE ONLINE: www.bpb.de
CONTACT US: goafrica@bpb.de
JM 14
•1
]
Perspectives on German-African futures
4 Anti-corruption measures in Ghana
6
]
mag 13
joint
sustainable
partnerships
The alarmNeed for action
in the Bundestag –mag
14
ing gap in German Anti-corruption law
Perspectives on German-African futures
In this Issue
november 2010
8 Stop Using Corruption as a Political Tool!
3Editorial
10 African Wedding
4
Ghana and the “Globalisation
of Culture”: Convergence and Conservation
6
Nigeria’s Rebranding Process:
Cultural Diplomacy at Work?
Profile
11 Alumni
5 The Creative Turn in German Cultural Politics
THE JM TEAM 7
Interview with Faisal Kiwewa
EDITORS: Alexander Schwartz, Dennis Kumetat, Linda Poppe // Editorial Team: Keren Mettle-Nunoo, J. Bergmann, M. Gatobu, L. Tsebe, B. Zasche
9 Interview with Robert Wawero
LAYOUT & DESIGN: Leitago /Narib
COVER PHOTOGRAPH: Leitago /Narib
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EDITORS: Alexander Schwartz, Dennis Kumetat, Linda Poppe // Editorial Team: Keren Asante,
J. Bergmann, M. Gatobu, L. Tsebe, B. Zasche
LAYOUT & DESIGN: Leitago /Narib
COVER PHOTOGRAPH: Leitago /Narib
Editorial
Letter from the Editors
As much as human life is not conceivable without
the various and rich expressions of culture, the
latter is also a competetive and sensitive issue. High
hopes for its integrative and economic potential
have become as evident as anxieties when it comes to cultural politics. In this issue of JointMAG,
our contributors have a look at the connections
between culture and economy, inner politics, and
international relations. They also had the chance
to talk to protagonists of the Ugandan and Kenyan
music and arts scenes, who kindly shared their view
on the potential of this sector in their respective
countries, and are also familiar with the challenges
to making their ideas work.
Enjoy reading JointMAG 14!
Dennis Kumetat,
Linda Poppe and
Alexander Schwartz
Call for
contributions
JM 15 will engage in the topic of environmental policy and environmental movements in Germany
and Africa.
Contributions are welcome until December, 10th.
2007 marked the first time in history when more than half of the world‘s population lived in cities.
What does this mean and how are policy-makers trying to deal with it from a social and ecologial
perspective? Contributions on these topics are welcome for JointMAG 16.
As usual, please send an e-mail to one of the editors or to goafrica@bpb.de to express your interest in a contribution.
JM 14
•3
Ghana and the “Globalisation
of Culture”: Convergence and
Conservation
If the concept of culture is used in
a broad sense, it includes the values
and beliefs of a group of people that
influence behaviour and perception. As
people grow, they learn and share in
this distinct way of doing things. In an
inter-cultural partnership, a common
understanding of each partner‘s values
serves as a significant factor for maintaining the relationship. With the advent of
globalisation, the world has often been
portrayed as a single village, in which
political, economic and socio-cultural
practices are becoming universal across
continents. In this image, cultures absorb
the practices of other cultures. These
perceived changes become manifest not
only in values and norms, but also in the
acquisition of tangible products, such as
cars and computers through technology.
At the same time, some communities
fear they are gradually losing important aspects of their cultural heritage.
Professor Elisabeth Christopher from
Macquarie University, however, believes
that “while cultural convergence can be
seen in many aspects of daily life around
the world, the power of nation states
have increased and cultural differences
between them have remained strong
and distinctive”.
The African culture is unique because of
its diverse nature. It comprises of many
individual countries and tribes with
heterogeneous cultures. Despite these
differences, some norms and values
stand out among the lot. These cultures
are exhibited through art, fashion, music
and dance, among others. The family is
central to the culture of most Ghanaian
tribes. Each tribe places value on the
extended family system. In this system,
individuals see themselves as part of a
large extended family network; and family relationships go beyond the boundaries of the immediate family set-up of
the father, mother and children. This
system encourages unity and support
among family members for the benefit
of all. Another common aspect of the
Ghanaian culture is the act of storytelling and the passage of oral literature
on from parents and grandparents to
children, who thus used to learn a lot
about their origin, historical events,
proverbs and traditional practices of
the past. Morality was crucial and was
expressed in the arts, music and dance.
Ghanaian traditional and high life music,
for example, echoed words of encouragement, pieces of advice and proverbs
that meant a lot to individuals. What
has become of these culturally relevant
practices among the youth today?
“No one can deny that American media
forms have spread around the world
or that these forms have been taken
up and altered by the people to whom
they have been transmitted” says David
Grewal, author of the critically acclaimed “Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization”. As anywhere
else in the world, the children in Ghana
are exposed to mass media today, which
influence them in both negative and
positive ways. While some benefit from
improved access to information and
communication through technology and
media, others have taken to lifestyles
that society describe as immoral and
contrary to “true Ghanaian culture”.
Some upcoming artists, writers, and
others in the creative industries seem
to shift towards western cultural
values and practices. Again, exposure
to western culture seems to influence
the perception of part of the youth on
issues of marriage and families.Young
married couples now want more privacy and independence off the extended
family links with most interactions
taking place only in the nuclear family. In
positive vein, the exposure to education
has helped to improve the perceptions
of many concerning the importance
of women in society and the need for
them to have the same opportunities
for personal development as men. Bad
traditional practices such as the female
genital mutilation and widowhood rites
are gradually phased out. This is enhancing the general well-being of members
of society.
The above examples show that there is
some amount of change taking place in
the value system, norms and practices
of the Ghanaian youth. The question
however is, whether these shifts should
be significant issues for action. David
Grewal argues that there is no need
to worry about these trivial changes in
the way societies behave. He says that
“instead, we should understand concerns about cultural homogenization
as revealing a broad transformation in
the ways of thought and life available to
people today”. In partnerships like that
of the Go Africa… Go Germany programme, an understanding of this new
way of thinking of participants and target groups will go a long way to enhance the effectiveness of the programme.
Some of these changes are inevitable as
they are part of of a global development.
However, we need to remember that,
while aspects of our culture evolve over
time, positive values and practices of
our cultural heritage must be protected
and passed on to future generations.
Keren Asante
About the author:
Keren Asante is an alumni of the 3rd
Go Africa...Go Germany programme
and is currently pursuing an MBA
at the University of Exeter Business School, UK. She has previously
worked as an accountant with the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints and has a strong passion for
teaching and entrepreneurship.
JM 14
•4
The Creative Turn in German
Cultural Politics
Infrastructure in the culture and arts
sector is great in Germany – taking a
comparative look at this particular field
around the world may well lead to this
conclusion. To start with, there is a number of well-equipped public and private
foundations in place. Politically, with the
2002-formed Committee of the Bundestag for Culture and the Media, the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the
Media with his close to 200 employees,
the Ministries of Culture at state-level,
and the Bundestag-mandated EnqueteCommission “Culture in Germany”
having broadly decomented their work
in 2007 it is provided for substantial political backing. Germany also is the only
country in the world, which can boast a
social security fund for artists (not artists
in a strict sense only, but still a considerable accomplishment). The budget of the
culture department accounts for about 8
billion Euros in public spending, with another estimated 300 million Euros coming
from corporate sponsorship and a minor
amount from private support.
Yet, it remains a very fragile asset in the
budget planning of the public authorities.
The sense of foreboding by persons
engaged in the cultural sector and recent
announcements of budget cuts leading to
theatre, opera, museum, and library closures (in the cities of Hamburg, Leipzig,
Halle, Ruhr District, to name but a few)
has been backed in August by a study
published by an international consultancy
firm claiming that about one out of ten
cultural institutions will have to close
down before 2020. With German cultural
policy organised largely at state- and
local level and the local municipalities
particularly short of money as well as
confronted by rising cost, it is easy to
see, how austerity could be the deathblow for a number of established cultural
institutions. Opinions on how much of a
disaster this actually is, are vastly diverging, of course.
With fine arts institutions highly subsidised (subsidies in some theatres add up
to nearly 160 Euros per visitor), while
not even half of the German population
ever goes there, it is hard to argue with
those, who state that there are more
pressing financial gaps to fill. Others,
however, maintain that apart from indirect revenues not being accounted for
in this kind of calculations, there are also
other functions and benefits to cultural
funding, which can hardly be measured
economically, but contribute to the
functioning of a democratic society as a
whole: the promotion of pluralism and
integration, the fostering of education
and, in the best of cases, participation.
Politically, the relief for tighter municipal
budgets is more and more being sought
in a stronger business-management focus
of the “cultural enterprises”, as they are
now termed. This sounds vaguely familiar
from other fields of public policy, where
former public institutions have been
asked to survive on their self-earned revenues for some time.Yet, there is now a
different facet to it. The popular findings
by economists like Richard Florida, who
suggest that only cities, which can sustainably attract a “creative class” will prosper economically in the long run, have
become very much en vogue and led to a
re-think about the role of culture among
German politicians.
Already one of the largest and fastest growing branches in the German
economy, the “creative industries” are
increasingly being seen as an economic
mainstay and location factor. As the
model of the industrial society is clearly
in decline, decision-makers apparently
put high hopes into the development of
the creative industries in the information
society. This is not only true for the obvious economic potential of the enterprises in this field. Rather, it seems that the
new main asset of the creative industries
is seen in creativity as an economic
factor in itself. In order to be economically competitive, people are expected to
be creative – and so are companies. This
includes more flexible working methods
as well as the ability to multi-task and
think beyond textbook ways of addressing entrepreneurial challenges. The more
flexible modes of work organisation are
also expected to somehow present a yet
vague, but viable alternative for the strai-
ned labour market. Thus, a large share of
the public budget in the competing cities
seems to be spent on creating local conditions aimed at setting free a so called
“creative potential”.
It is impossible to judge at this stage, if
an economic policy-focus on trying to
artificially build these kinds of creative
environments will turn out to be reasonable or not. However, it is striking that
this political turn is not only performed
by economic policy-makers but also
simultaneously carried out by those
public bodies assigned with promoting
arts and culture. The Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Bernd
Neumann, correspondingly tends to refer
to cultural funding as an “indispensable
investment in the future” in recent public
statements, in order to justify his budget.
While it is a good sign, that so much
emphasis is put on the role of culture for
society, it would be grossly careless to
reduce it to its economic potential. Equal
or more importance should be attributed to its critical intellectual contribution
to making society capable of discourse.
This cannot be achieved by pinpointed
local cultural investment. Instead, political
bodies will have to focus on making
sure that members of society (may it be
local, national or global) have intellectual
as well as material access to cultural
goods. Not only the support of cultural
institutions in a narrow sense, but also
considerable efforts in the (compared to
other OECD-countries neglected) field
of education will be a crucial leverage for
achieving this aim.
Alexander Schwartz
About the author:
Alexander Schwartz is an alumni
of the 3rd Go Africa...Go Germany
programme and graduated in Political Science, Economics, and Pedagogics. He is co-runner of a small
Hamburg-based record label and
prepares for a dissertation.
JM 14
•5
Opinion
Nigeria’s Rebranding Process:
Cultural Diplomacy at Work?
It is quite ironical to note, that, as many
more countries are cashing in on the
benefits of cultural diplomacy as a means
of earning soft power, they are spending
less on implementing cultural diplomacy policies. The budget cut is now even
more being justified with the global
economic crunch and many governments
seem to have lost
the focus, that
investing in sustainable cultural diplomacy projects
goes a long way in
opening new opportunities of partnership for sustainable
economic growth and development.
Nigeria has been striving to portray a
favorable picture of itself and has in the
last couple of years developed many policies, which aimed at selling itself to the
world – not because it was engaged in
wars with other countries, but because
it has been facing the challenges of a
developing nation with insecurity, unemployment, and inadequate infrastructural
facilities. To make matters more complicated, it has over 140 million inhabitants
with many variant and particularistic
cultures (250 ethnic groups) to sustain; sometimes threatening to result in
demographic disaster.
This myriad of problems has glossed
over the rich and abundant cultural endowments Nigeria has. Thus, in order to
make the country an attractive destination for the global flow of foreign direct
investment (FDI), as well as in order to
give a more complete picture of its inherent rich culture, successive governments
have launched cultural diplomacy policies
and projects.
In order to complement foreign exchange earnings from the oil sector, the
Federal Ministry of Tourism, Culture and
National Orientation is saddled with the
responsibility to supervise the identification, development and marketing of
Nigeria’s cultural and touristic potential
through its implementing agencies. Its
mandate is focused on policy formulation and implementation, documentation,
publication and packaging of culture and
tourism events, and negotiating and signing of bilateral and multilateral culture
and tourism agreements.
The Ministry has been carrying out its
responsibility
through engaging
in world cultural
festivals and local
cultural shows,
like the Argungu
Fishing Festival,
Osun-Osogbo Festival, Eyo Festival
and many others.Yet, there have been
reservations that the Ministry has been
less proactive in carrying out its responsibility, than it has been reactionary to
events most times negatively affecting
Nigeria. As the Rebranding Nigeria process, which was launched as the Nigeria
Image Project in July 2004 and renamed
in The Heart of Africa Project in 2005, is
being championed by the
Minister of Information
and Communication, it has
taken the shine away from
the Ministry of Tourism,
Culture and National Orientation making it a more
or less a dormant one. The
latter instead should have taken the Rebranding Nigeria project as its main means
of achieving its mandate, working with
the Ministry of Information and Communication to produce synergistic results.
The Rebranding Nigeria process was
conceptualized to serve as information
and orientation platform to project
Nigeria in a good light. It received about
600 million Naira (3 million Euros) plus
some expected private sector Corporate
Social Responsibility contributions, which
have remained unaccounted for until
today, therefore making the project less
effective. Experts have pointed at various
lapses, ranging from poor conceptua-
lization and lacking originality to bad
coordination. Thus the problem here is
not about lacking funds, as it takes not
too much to carry out cultural projects,
when the talents are abound and they
only need some support.
Another project the rebranding process
took up recently is the Good People…
Great Nation campaign launched in
March 2009. This campaign has been
designed as a response to those critics
complaining about the lack of originality.
The apparent volatility points to the fact
that there are no consistent policies
in the arts and culture industry, which
severely poses a challenge to Nigerian
cultural diplomacy.
The only way forward for our cultural
diplomacy is for the right agencies like
the Federal Ministry of Tourism, Culture
and National Orientation as well as the
National Institute for Cultural Orientation to expand their efforts and establish
their presence and functionality by properly conceptualizing their policies. They
have to ensure proper
coordination and work out
feasible and sustainable
projects that will tap into
the potential of artistic
and cultural endowments
(Wole Soyinka, Chimamanda, Chinua Achebe, Benin
Empire, Fela Anikulapo Kuti and so many
attest to this abundance) in order for
Nigeria to show its cultural wealth and
relevance to the world.
Salaudeen Abdulrahman Adeshina
About the author:
Salaudeen Abdulrahman Adeshina
is an alumni of the 3rd Generation of the Go Africa...Go Germany
programme and resides in Lagos,
Nigeria.
JM 14
•6
interview
Interview with
Faisal Kiwewa,
Director of the Bayimba Cultural Foundation and Bayimba
International Festival of Music and Arts
Interview by: Linn Rekittke
Dear Mr. Kiwewa, you are the Director
of the Bayimba Cultural Foundation and
Bayimba International Festival of Music and
Arts.What is this Foundation about? How
are the Foundation and the Festival getting
funded?
The Foundation aims at creating a vibrant and attractive arts sector in Uganda.
And to achieve this, we organize a range
of activities; from workshops, trainings,
exchange programs to festivals, both
in Kampala and in the regions. Being
a Ugandan local initiative, running the
organization and financing the Festivals
has certainly been a challenge. But for
the past two years we have managed to
secure various partnerships with funders.
We hope to maintain them for a few
more years in financing our projects and
programs. There has also been a lot of
individual giving. Coupled with a great
spirit of volunteerism this has kept us going and has brought about an increasing
enthusiasm for wanting to contribute
positive change in the arts sector.
How and why did you come up with the
idea of the Bayimba Festival?
The idea of a Festival came to my mind
during the first year of existence of Bayimba Cultural Foundation. It has developed into one of our main activities.
While traveling back and forth from
Uganda to Europe and the USA, spending
time in the biggest cultural cities and
capitals, I am always reminded of how
much work there remains to be done
for the arts in our country. There was
not only a need for a social celebration
of the arts, but there was also a serious
need to create awareness amongst the
Ugandan public about the existing arts
in Uganda, Africa and beyond. Our public
still has little appreciation of the arts –
many people have misunderstood the
arts and when one spoke of culture it
was perceived primitive. Bayimba Cultural Foundation made it its top priority
to confront people with various arts and
the big annual Festival and the regional
festivals have become the main vehicles
for this.
There was also a serious need for exposure of Ugandan arts and artists to the
rest of the world. The Festival created
a platform where artists from different
genres and places could come together.
It focuses on artistic collaborations and
exchanges, sharing of skills and experiences, training and mentorship programs, all
to help Ugandan artists in understanding
themselves and boosting their skills and
experiences so that they can create the
arts they love to create.
Were there any challenges you had to face
while organizing and what kind of role did
the government play in establishing such a
big event?
There have been plenty of challenges in
the past five years of the Foundation and
the three years of running the Bayimba
Festival, ranging from winning public trust
and support from artists and government to financing our arts projects and
the Bayimba Festival. The Foundation
had to put a lot of energy in explaining
and avoiding the negative perception of
being another money-making Festival.
So, we made our objectives very clear,
articulated our role in the sector to the
practitioners and the artists and built a
great fundraising team that has managed
to see us through these challenging first
years.
After understanding our objectives, also
the government has been appreciating
what we are doing and has been morally
supportive. Of course we understand
that we can never discuss a monetary
contribution because we know that they
cannot afford it. Maybe this changes in
the coming years.
What do you think is the outcome? What do
you think about the accolade of art and culture being ”creative industry” and platform
for public diplomacy?
There is growing enthusiasm within the
JM 14
•7
interview
creative arts sector, both amongst artists
and the public. Artists have started
thinking of using their creative minds to
address their own personal and community issues. They have also started
understanding that they can survive on
their own creativity. Many of them have
approached Bayimba to start their own
initiatives and projects.
I have no problem with the term “creative industry” being used for arts and
culture. Everywhere in the world, countries and cities depend a lot on what the
creative industry produces. The challenge
for us in Uganda is that we have not
understood it yet. The term creative
industry has to first sink in the
heads of the practitioners, the
artists, before policy makers and
the public can be brought on
board. To achieve this we have
created a platform for discussion,
the Uganda Annual Conference
on Arts and Culture, and we are
developing networks for mapping
the Ugandan cultural sector and
engaging with international bodies to
support the civil society efforts.
materials that are used by artists in
other parts of the world. There are, for
example, graffiti artists in Uganda but
they cannot compete with graffiti artists
in Germany because they cannot afford
the spray paint or even finding it in
shops; they have to go to Nairobi. Such
small things affect artists more than they
would do in Germany and that creates a
very big difference. Therefore, Western
art is
perceived
How is Ugandan art perceived overseas,
especially in Germany? And opposite around:
how do Ugandans perceive art from foreign
countries?
First of all, art from Western countries
is not always well understood by the
Ugandan public. Second, Ugandan artists
that produce for a Western market often
produce art that is not understood or
appreciated by their own people. Finally,
Ugandan artists that produce for the
local market – especially mainstream musicians – heavily borrow from and copy
Western styles and do therefore not develop unique Ugandan art products. It is
therefore important to develop our arts
from Uganda that portrays a Ugandan
identity and offers unique art products
to the global art market while also
producing for a growing local art market.
These are issues that Bayimba tries to
address as well through its activities and
is reflected by the slogan for the Foundation: “Understanding who we are”.
I also would like to highlight that our
artists are often not in a position to
use the very advanced techniques and
to be
advanced while
Ugandan
art is labeled as African and traditional,
which relates to it being backward in
production techniques and access to materials.Yet it is our challenge to produce
attractive art with the means available –
eventually, I firmly believe, this will be our
strength and so we will be able to offer
unique Ugandan art products to the
global art market.
Taking an article of the DW about infrequent protest by Artists against the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill as an example,
what can you tell us about the role of art
in Uganda to talk about current social and
political questions? How political is art in
Uganda?
There are several initiatives of artists
through which they draw attention to
social issues; like girl child education,
street kids, female genital mutilation and
so on. These are mainly social issues to
which people and government agree, and
therefore non-sensitive and non-controversial issues. But to be honest with you,
I have not seen any artistic project on
defending homosexuality – that would
be too sensitive and controversial. So,
maybe these were Ugandan artists in the
diaspora or artists from other places.
Few Ugandans have actually raised their
voices against the bill – only those people that can afford to stand up without
losing their position, such as well-known
academicians (Sylvia Tamale), judges
(Ogoola), journalists (Mwenda) and
religious leaders (Ssenjondo – though he
was excommunicated for it!). The arts
sector and artists in Uganda are not yet
strong enough to protest on such
an issue; they would put their own
position at risk.
That being said, artists in Uganda
do generally not address issues
that are heavily political. This is
something that stems directly from Uganda’s past, which
includes a history of repressive
actions against artists that opposed governments – it has instilled
fear and basically killed the social
relevance of artists and the arts. Bayimba tries to revive a spirit of positive
change amongst artists, by making them
aware of the potential contribution they
can make positive change in Uganda. This
intention is also expressed by the motto
for our recent events: “Our Contribution
to Society”.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and
discuss those very interesting issue with us
Mr. Kiwewa!
Thank you too for giving me this opportunity!
Additional information:
www.bayimba.org
About the author:
Linn Rekittke is an alumni of the 2nd
Go Africa...Go Germany programme.
She is currently writing on her final
thesis in Communication Studies.
She has been working for various institutions and organisations like the
International Office of the RWTH
Aachen University and the Goethe
Institute Kampala (Uganda). Nigeria.
JM 14
•8
interview
Interview with
Robert Wawero Kiboy
(Penya Africa)
Interview by: Alexander Schwartz
Mr.Wawero, you are the director of Penya
Africa. Please tell us what the project is
about.
Penya Africa is a Nairobi-based non-profit music label promoting music as a tool
for development. One important aspect
is capacity-building, not only in the music
sector, but also beyond. Another aim is
to present role models to the youth.
The label was established in 2008, which
– given the tough economic environment in
the business – was not a great time to put
up a music label by any standards, as expert
opinion goes.This probably holds true for
East Africa as well. So what made you initiate the project and how did it start off?
Penya Africa evolved from 2004 on in a
long-term collaboration between various
Kenyan musicians and producers, who
thought the Kenyan music scene needed
developping, and the Dutch NGO Up To
You Too, whose focus is on promoting
economic and cultural independence by
adressing young people in East Africa and
the Netherlands. From a global perspective, we felt that there was a voice
missing from East Africa. We wanted
to highlight a new Kenya to the global
public. Myself, I am a producer. Having
lived in Sweden for many years and being
able to use my experience gained there,
the project was like a dream to me,
personally.
How would you describe the infrastructure
for running a music label in Nairobi?
There has been a lot of change. In the
1970s, like Lagos, Nairobi was an important spot in the vinyl industry. Nearly all
the big international labels like EMI were
based in Kenya and there was a very
good production infrastructure in place.
Live recording was quite big at that time.
Then, in the 1980s there was a general
lack of finances and the economic effects
of cassette piracy kicked in. This affected
both the quality of music and the production infrastructure. Today the market
is much smaller and music production
is largely reliant on home recording.
There are a couple of big production
companies, partly South African, which
are attractive to artists who want to be
played on the radio, but I get the feeling
that they often stand in the way of the
artist‘s integrity. Also, being played on the
radio does not make the artist better off
necessarily, as there is a lack of institutions for making sure the artists are paid
their royalties.
So if a large share of recorded music is not
played on the radio, how do people get into
contact with that music?
Public media do not have that much
influence. Distribution takes place via various channels and there are a lot of links
between the formal and informal music
market. For example, the “Matatu” [mini
busses] play an important role in spreading music, because nearly everyone uses
them. People do a lot of file-sharing via
Bluetooth technology as well. And, of
course, you can see an increasing influence of blogs and social media. Our label
has stopped printing flyers altogether,
because social media are huge. It even
works for the rural areas. People access
it via their mobiles. On top, you have a
big and far-reaching informal distribution network, which works quite well. In
Europe, you would label it “piracy”, but it
is different in Kenya. The pirates produce
actual CDs and cassettes at a very low
cost. They have a lot of influence and
decide for themselves, which music they
sell via their own networks.
How can it be economically viable to run a
music label in these circumstances?
If you want to make a living out of it, you
have to find different business models
than in places like Europe, that is for
sure. It is more about linking up and
creating corporate models of earning
money. There actually is a lot of research
in how those informal “pirate” networks
work as well, they have a far better and
wider reach. As Penya Africa is a nonprofit organisation, we also do fundraising in Kenya and are funded by the
Dutch foreign Ministry and the DoenFoundation for our work in capacity-building, for example. We also did fundraising
in Sweden for a tour. Anyway, I believe,
if you produce and release high quality
music, there are always people willing to
support with buying stuff.
In terms of political and social matters,
what role do music and arts perform in
touching these issues in Kenya?
I would say, the attitudes are changing.
In the past, people have been afraid to
speak out loud, but are a lot braver to
express who they are in all sorts of manners now. This applies to music and arts
as well and is helped by the internet and
more people travelling abroad nowadays.
At times you can tell the attitude of people by their looks, which in turn encourages other people to express themselves likewise. There is a lot of change with
new genres coming in also. Sometimes
artists are frustrated, but more due to
big-spending multis trying to set the
gameplan in the production process.
Companies usually do not understand
the value of art. They pick up artists, hype
them, and then drop them quickly.
What about the perception of Kenyan music
abroad and the other way around?
People do care what is going on in other
music scenes over the continent, but international music comes in trends, really.
Also, as I said, Kenyans travel comparatively much, so they get in touch with
different cultures. With Kenyan music
abroad, it is not always easy. Cost prohibits you to travel with a whole group of
musicians often, so the singers have to
do playback shows. It is harder to reach
and convince people that way and that
is what you do the tour for, after all. We
organized two big tours in 2009 and
2010 in Sweden, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Belgium. This, for us, showed
that it works and that there is interest.
Thanks for your time and all the best for
your future projects, Mr.Wawero.
Additional information:
www.penyafrica.com
www.www.uptoyoutoo.org
www.africaunsigned.com
www.kenyachristian.blogspot.com
JM 14
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Website:
www.bpb.de
joint
mag14
Perspectives on German-African futures
e-mail address:
goafrica@bpb.de
november 2010
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JM 14
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