AWAY from Belfast, chapati, goat meat, chicken, beef and other foods I would rather not mention will be starring on Christmas tables in Africa. In many African and households a turkey Christmas will not be part of the culinary bloodletting but all the same, they will devour other edible stuff.
But of course bleeding heart fighter against famine our friend Bob Geldof was on his own planet when he asked of Africans that weird question, Do they know it's Christmas? Bob and wee Midge Ure needed a good smack on the bum for making such an embarrassing lyrical faux pas. For someone like Geldof with all that mastery of pride and confidence he has, it will take at least another century before he says, Hey, look. I’m sorry for sounding like a you-know-what.
The reggae and African rhumba you hear have influenced the world with powerful combined with lyrics that support the big-man dictator. Zairean/ Congolese musicians excelled in this reportedly because they had to or some overzealous state security agent would keep them quiet for the last time.
Announcing in one's song that the only thing that looks like water in Africa is the people’s tears is a pregnant lie, the death of reality right there.Not one of the 40 Band Aid artists of 1984 could see the damn superiority complex of the song. We must appreciate that artists are not moral deities, they are out there to write what they like, make their bucks and go home. It’s only a few more days then the song will dissappear again to its maker for another year, another round of applause.
African and Caribbean musicians have also got it wrong many times with lyrics that only they can understand why. The reggae and African rhumba you hear have influenced the world with powerful combined with lyrics that support the big-man dictator. Zairean/ Congolese musicians excelled in this reportedly because they had to or some overzealous state security agent would keep them quiet for the last time. The music of Congo-Zaire has profoundly shown the direction of where the rest of African is going, the region has produced its modern music since the 1930s.
The Congolese musician Franco ran into trouble with his lyrics and was consequently imprisoned in 1978 for two months for his songs 'Helene' and 'Jackie'. The bigman President Mobutu Sesse Seko was horified by the apparent sexualised lyrics of the song. The man who was jailing him later decorated Franco with state honours for his contribution to the development of Congolese musical heritage. His work was then cut out of history. He wrote songs in praise of Mobutu and other state agents.
That is one thing that does not really happen in modern European music heritage, the songs of praise aimed at political leaders. In the past it did. Composer George Frideric Handel, a German who relocated to England, wrote his praise of British royalty who were also a German import.
COVID SCHOOL LESSON
Away from music, a word on the education our children, black or white, are receiving at our schools today. Our teachers are trying their best during these unpredictable Covid times to catch up and achieve the goals they had set before the virus turned up.
Many minority ethnic children who struggle with the English language are lagging behind because of this language barrier. I met with a teaching assistant from America who told me point blank that this or that child will never make it because English is not their first language.
One hopes that schools can invest in multilingual teaching assistants. This will help a lot because imagine a very talented individual whose chances of progressing are staggered by teacher and teaching assistant lack of tools to teach that foreign language. It must be very frustrating.
Happy Christmas to you all.