Africa Oyé presents Culture (Jamaica)
UK TOUR MARCH 2013

Kenyatta Hill’s career began the day his father’s ended. Joseph Hill, singer and songwriter for the legendary Jamaican vocal trio Culture, collapsed and died while on a 2006 tour of Europe.

To the amazement of promoters, fans and critics alike, Kenyatta stepped onstage and delivered electrifying performances time and again – nineteen shows in all – until the tour was complete.

This was unheard of in any genre of music at any time. Kenyatta gave of himself so totally – as his father had for so many years – that the two seemed to become one, the eerily similar voices and the vibes igniting the critics and yielding a new reggae mantra “magic, not tragic!”

Kenyatta has carried the torch for his father alongside Culture ever since and they have established themselves as one of the most vibrant live reggae bands around.

Some sing music for the dollar. I sing music for the brother."
JOSEPH HILL (1949-2006)

After their fantastic appearance on 'Later with Jools Holland' and a number 1 album in the iTunes UK Music Charts Mokoomba's 'Rising Tide' has also been Voted Songlines Album of the year 2012.
Availible to download Now!

The Creative Learning and Participation Project

With The Endless Journey (Niger) & pupils from Booker Avenue JR School, South Liverpool
Dates: 21st/22nd/25th/26th June 2012
Number of sessions: 8 one hour sessions plus one performance
Number of participants: 400

The Endless Journey is the title of a multi media touring project featuring a live music show, a documentary film, photographic exhibition and a Creative Learning education programme. The work centred around four musicians from Niger in West Africa who are all internationally known artists from the groups Mamane Barka Ensemble and Etran Finatawa.

After several years of touring the world to promote their own nomadic culture the band members realised that when they returned home their children’s generation were turning their backs on their heritage in their haste to adopt Western culture. They decided to take a desert road trip to take their music and traditions to schools in outlying towns in Niger. The response was extraordinary and their friend, the film-maker Jean Molitor, accompanied them and produced a film and photographic exhibition of their journey.

Africa Oye has been involved in delivering quality Learning and Participation projects for the last 15 years and Education is at the heart of this project and as tour producers Access All Areas have been developing programmes for young people with touring musicians for the last seven years. They have formed a strategic partnership with WOMAD Foundation who deliver the training for the musicians when they arrive in the UK, to devise high quality workshops, accompanied by an education resource pack to provide pre-visit preparation and post-visit follow up to support additional learning.

We were able to take the project into Booker Avenue Junior School for four days, during which time presented a series of one-hour workshops attended by every single pupil in the school. The Children learnt about the history, culture, and Music of Niger and The programme culminated in a concert to the whole school assembly of nearly 400 children and staff, with active participation from all the children who had learnt a number of songs.

The feedback from the Children who attended was very positive with many commenting that they were delighted to learn about a whole new culture they never knew existed.

On the Thursday and Friday Annie Menter, Executive Director of The WOMAD Foundation, attended and contributed first hand to the workshops. The visit was an overwhelming success and was extremely well received by pupils, teachers and other staff, some of whom gave us the following feedback :-

Peter Graham..Deputy Head.

"Brilliant..recommend this to anyone....hands on workshops...excellent communication."'

Jane Nevelly, teacher, "Really enjoyable, totally different"

Kit Hayes, teacher "All 4 musicians were lovely with the children....the children really enjoyed it....I felt the children would have enjoyed rotating all the way round so as to do the drums the singing and the dancing so maybe a slightly quicker pace"

Helen Baggeley, teacher. "Fantastic ..so inspirational...incredible musicians"

In conclusion the project proved that taking diverse cultures of this nature into schools is an invaluable experiences for all concerned and we will continue to deliver projects of this high standard in the future.

Many thanks to our partners in this project Access All Areas, WOMAD Foundation, and P H Holt Foundation.

If there are any schools, colleges or institutions who are interested in hosting future learning and participation Projects with Oye Artists then please email　info@africaoye.com　to register your interest.

For the best part of 17 years Africa Oyé has brought to Liverpool the best artists from all over Africa, The Caribbean, and The Americasto play at its now legendary festival.

In 2009 thanks to funding from the Arts Council of England and as part of a new touring initiative called ‘Black Routes’ Oyé will also tour this great live music around the UK.

	2010 is the Year of Health and Wellbeing in the Liverpool region, and with this in mind Africa Oyé,  is introducing the Health, Learning and Participation Zone to this years'festival. Read more..

The Legacy: Roots and Music

The Black Routes consortium consists of 5 Organisations who will deliver 20 National Tours and 10 Regional Education Projects between them throughout the UK from April 2009 to March 2011. Read more..