• Thu 02 – Sat 04 11 2017 •
Digging the Global South
Curated by THOMAS GLÄSSER / Zentrum für Aktuelle Musik e.V. in cooperation with the Academy of the Arts of the World and the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music at Stadtgarten
The three-day feature Digging the Global South combines talks, concerts, and parties to look at artistic strategies, production, and distribution of mostly electronic music from Africa and the African diaspora. The sophisticated Western market’s hunger for music from the world’s margins and crisis zones pretends to be enlightened, but it is often motivated by helpless yearning for symbolic shocks: the world outside the crystal palace becomes a reality reserve for the politically correct cultural consumer and virtual globetrotter. Digging the Global South takes a critical look at this movement. It does not only present music from Africa and its diaspora but questions record producers, journalists, and musicians mediating between African music scenes and the European public, giving insight into a complex African-diasporic modernity shaped by globalization, digitalization, and urbanity, and the Western projections it faces. Curated by the programmer Thomas Gläßer/Zentrum für Aktuelle Musik e.V.
"It is breathtaking how the current hype around African music – like the sophisticated Western market’s hunger for art from ´outside the crystal palace´ in general – coincides with stricter immigration regimes and the resurgence of reactionary concepts of cultural identity", says musician and Digging the Global South-curator Thomas Gläßer. "There seems to be a strong yearning for an outside world beyond our saturated and hyper-commodified culture, beyond its simultaneous stagnation and dizzying pace, its anxiety and isolated individuality – but it won’t be satisfied on a symbolic level only". Digging the Global South is a three-day feature probing into the process of cultural globalisation by looking at artistic strategies, production, distribution and reception of mostly electronic music from Africa and the African diaspora. Combining talks, concerts and parties, the festival explores the ambiguities and exclusions, emancipatory potential and speculative futures emerging from this process. It presents challenging and profoundly exciting music – politically charged, indigenous and hypermodern – and examines these questions in conversations with record producers, journalists, and musicians who mediate between African music scenes and the European public. Digging the Global South gives insight into a complex African-diasporic modernity shaped by globalization, digitization, and urbanity and critically engages with the Western projections it faces.
Line-Up:
Benjamin Noys (Chichester / UK)
C-Drik (Berlin // Belgium)
DJ Marfox (Lisbon // Angola)
DJ Lag (Durban / South Africa)
Don´t DJ aka Florian Meyer (Berlin / Germany)
Elsa M´Bala (Berlin // Cameroon)
Endeguena Mulu (Addis Ababa / Ethiopia) tbc
FAKA (Johannesburg / South Africa)
Felix Klopotek (Cologne / Germany)
Francis Gay (Cologne / Germany)
Jaqueline George (Cairo / Egypt)
Klein (London / UK)
Luka Guindo (Bamako / Mali)
Lukas Ligeti (Irvine / USA)
Maha El Nabawi (Cairo / Egypt)
Mahmoud Refat (Cairo / Egypt)
Mattin (Berlin // Spain) "Songbook #7" feat. Moor Mother, Lucio Capece, Marcel Dickhage, Farahnaz Hatam, Colin Hacklander, Cathleen Schuster
Michael Baird (Utrecht // Zambia)
Moor Mother (Philadelphia / USA)
Rough Americana (Amsterdam // USA)
Venue: Stadtgarten and Studio 672, Venloer Straße 40, 50672 Cologne
THU 2 11 2017 / 20:00 – 01:00
FRI 3 11 2017 / 19:00 – 02:00
SAT 4 11 2017 / 12:00 – 19:00 & 23:00, open end
In English
Supported by
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education)Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia Goethe-Institut / Auswärtiges Amt Musikfonds
Presented by WDR Cosmo, WIRE, Norient, Stadtrevue
