Refugee All Stars Of Sierra Leone, Kekele Live!

Refugee All Stars Of Sierra Leone, Kekele
Welles Park, Chicago
Sunday, July 9, 2006

With contemporary images of reggae closely associated with weed and hazy mind states, it’s easy to forget the genre started as revolutionary music. That point was vividly brought to life when the Refugee All Stars Of Sierra Leone took the stage playing not their native folk music but pure reggae. Roaring onto the stage, the six-member band demonstrated the close connection between reggae, societal change, and hope.

Hope was probably in short order when the group’s six members languished in a Guinea refugee camp while a civil was tore through the West African nation of Sierra Leone for almost a decade. Turning to music as a refuge from the violence and injustice that surrounded them, they formed a group and toured the various refugee camps across Guinea. The subject of an award-winning documentary, the Refugee All Stars Of Sierra Leone use music as a message of peace and forgiveness, perhaps changing the perceptions of both their countrymen and their listeners.

Decked out in lively olive and rust African print outfits, the All Stars supplied a dynamic spectacle, kicking and stepping to the drum and bass that underscored their music. As if playing mostly reggae music wasn’t enough tribute to Jamaican-by-way-of-African culture, most of the band sported swaying dreadlocks and the lead singer punctuated most songs with the Jamaican battle cry meant to resemble the sound of bullets: “Buyaka! Buyaka!”

Sometimes singing sweetly over rolling rhythms, sometimes gruffly chanting over rapid-fire beats, the group expertly played a series of socio-political reggae tunes. “Sometimes we make people dance, sometimes we teach,” explained the lead. But after the rollicking, yet telling “Living Like A Refugee,” the group was ready to cover material even closer to home. “We come from Africa and I’m really proud to introduce a kind of music without any Western influence. We’re going to play traditional music with traditional instruments,” they announced. After kicking into “Butuvague,” an authentic Sierra Leone tune with a capella chanting and pounding drums, the All Stars delved deeper with the traditional West African “Palm Wine Medley.” Currently touring North America with their brand of reggae rhythms and affirmations for Africa, the Refugee All Stars Of Sierra Leone are spreading the love that the world needs.

If the All Stars connect Africa with Jamaica, then the Congolese group Kekele connect her with Cuba. Riding out on smooth rumba melodies, the band call up the long, tangled, history of the African roots of Cuban rhythms. Enslaved Africans were shipped from the Congo to Cuba well into the 19th century. They transplanted their culture into Cuba, bringing percussion, rhythms and instruments. By the time Cuban rumba poured out from this mélange in the ’30s, across the Atlantic, the Congolese recognized the altered rhythms on radio and embraced it, using their own Lingala language instead of Spanish.

Comprising veteran Congolese rumba players such as Papa Noel, Bumba Massa, and Loko Massengo, Kekele mixes up a jazzy, swingin’ verision of rumba.

Opening with throbbing percussion and sublime harmonies that floated over the park, Kekele harkened back to the days of soukous, a big band rumba hybrid that flourished in the Congo’s capitol city of Kinshasa in the ’70s and ’80s. Scorching sax solos and stinging guitars encouraged hip swaying and breezy enjoyment as the group sang mostly in Lingala, save for the Spanish phrase (muchos gracias!) here and there.

— Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly