Harambee Pasadia
On Friday 22nd May we loaded up 2 caravans and headed on out to the wonderful ‘Harambee Pasadia’ – a music festival celebrating the African diaspora in the North East of England
On Friday 22nd May we loaded up 2 caravans and headed on out to the wonderful ‘Harambee Pasadia’ (http://www.creativevisionsandrhythms.com/) – a music festival celebrating the African diaspora in the North East of England held at the TCR Hub, Barnard Castle. The annual event is organised, managed, and headlined by the inimitable Hannabiell Sanders and Yilis del Carmen Suriel of ‘Midnight Blue’ (http://www.hannabiell.com/ladies-of-midnight-blue.html).
Wonderful women both, and friends of Jack Drum, Hannabiell and Yilis worked with our delightful horde of young folk to create ‘Gamalan-a-ding-dong’, a genre-smashing fusion of Afro-Asian-Samba rhythms, melodies, and song. The group showcased the work at the festival, alongside our resident drummers ‘Runaway Samba’ and youth band (who ain’t so young anymore) ‘Arcanum’. We knew them when… That’s all we can say about those little rock stars.
The event went from brilliant to brillianter as our young musicians (and weary workers) soaked up the buffet of international music – dance group Afrokru (Gateshead), Manding Kabou Trio (France), DJ Volta 45 (London), Los de la Vega, and many more. We caught a set by ‘Little Alaska’ (stage name of JDA associate artist and facilitator Rupert Philbrick) and James Edwin Lane of the JDA youth programme alumni. The team also delivered graffiti workshops for revellers, and facilitated the creation of a ‘Funky Junk’ band – Wombles, eat your hearts out!
The weekend was a not only a wonderful opportunity for the young people to see diverse range of great music (nothing to be sniffed at) but also to see facilitators with whom they have a relationship in their role as ‘professional musician’. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it, and by building these networks in the local music industry and sharing the stage with their mentors, the participants can see a pathway to a music-making career of their very own. Heavy stuff, innt? Please note, they also ate themselves sick on camp-stove cuisine and rolled in filth so fully-functional humans they are not. They’re pretty much ready for Glastonbury though, wouldn’t you say? But Harambee is better.