In one of her letters to Fawwaz Traboulsi, published in Of Cities and Women, Lebanese artist and poet Etel Adnan wrote that if it weren’t for the sea, Beirut would not have survived devastation. “But there is salt on the ground, in our mouths, on our clothes, in our hands; something that resists putrefaction,” she told him.
In Arabic, there is a saying that goes: “Do a good deed and throw in the sea.” The sea here is a metaphor for what we leave behind us in order to move on. It speaks of our capacity to let go and to transform. Throw in the sea is about releasing what stands in our way, what we no longer need, what is not in flow. It is an invitation to be like the sea: always in motion, ever changing, and yet perpetually harmonious.
For this project, this saying was the harbor from where we set out to sail. The sea became a space of transmutation and imagination; as well as a space that transcends differences and brings together diverse communities that are geographically, historically and culturally connected to the Mediterranean. This unifying mass of water carries the dreams and myths of those who live next to it, stroll by it, jump in it, are captured by it, write and sing about it… The project is an attempt to decode and record these narratives. By doing so, it aims to create a space for the collective unconscious to be heard and for alternative histories to be revealed.
The project consists of two parts in dialogue with each other. One part will take place in Sardinia, the other in Lebanon.
In Sardinia, the project will move across the Sulcis, reaching out to different communities from the region and inviting them to participate to multidisciplinary workshops and activities.
As the project moves from one place to another, it becomes a record of the unheard: of voices that have been stung by revelation; of voices that are in constant search of the sea within and outside of them. It is a record of our collective imagination and one that ultimately finds its way back to the sea.
In parallel to the activity in Sardinia, Ibrahim will collect soundscapes and conduct short interviews with different groups of people who live close to or have a specific relationship with the sea in Lebanon.
The idea is to create a weaving of the sounds from both sides, Lebanon and Sardinia, to tell the story of journeying towards the sea collectively and individually, what happens along the way, and how we will in the end, irrespective of our different paths, all meet at the sea.
Project commissioned by TBA21-Academy as part of The Current III: “Mediterraneans: ’Thus waves come in pairs’ (after Etel Adnan)”, curated by Barbara Casavecchia
Chadal is the name of a Sardinian-Senegalese band, created as part of an international cooperation project, organized by Cherimus in collaboration with Kër Thiossane, ville pour l’art et le multimedia, based in Dakar and Orchestre National du Sénégal. The project’s idea was to strengthen and deepen the dialogue between Sardinian and Senegalese people, the latter representing the largest African community within the Italian island.
Sardinian guitar player Alberto Balia, launeddas Player Andrea Pisu, trumpeter Riccardo Pittau and pianist Matteo Scano met in Dakar with songwriters Bah Moody and Marcel Diabia Ndong, Balafon player Sidi Koita, xalam player Alioune Ndiaye, kora player Baka Cissokho, bass player Alassane Cissè and collaborated in creating a new band and a new album.
Chadal debuted in Dakar on May 20, 2011, before embarking on a concert tour across Sardinia and the North of Italy. The visionary set of the concerts was created during a series of workshops held in Dakar in collaboration with visual artist Abdoulaye Cysso Manee, Espace Enfants de la Maison de la Culture Douta Seck and École Mamour Diakhate, classe CPB as well as in several small towns of Sulcis, where both Sardinian and Senegalese children also built traditional instruments from their respective regions and exchanged them.
From December 2020, Cherimus association is a special guest of Spectrum web radio, an association founded in Brescia in 2019 by artists and musicians, “a corridor for sonic explorers”, as stated on their website.
Each month Cherimus will produce a podcast entitled Deggo Yëggo meets BLM Bergamo. The title highlights the meeting between Cherimus Deggo Yëggo’s project and Black Lives Matter Bergamo, the group of activists and artists for an anti-racist, inclusive and supportive Bergamo (we invite you to visit the global-network website https: // blacklivesmatter. com /).
As in Deggo Yëggo Cherimus supports the exchange between Sardinian and Senegalese communities present in Sardinia, the collaboration with BLM Bergamo has led to imagine a space that favors the voices of Afro-descendant Italian artists. A space capable of focusing on talents usually on the margins of the world of traditional and dominant media, capable of involving an audience that is too often ignored and excluded.
The name Deggo Yëggo was born during the rehearsals of the Sardinian-Senegalese group in Dakar, translated into English from Wolof it means: harmony, understanding, listening and sharing aimed at a common action. This will be the leitmotif of the podcast.
In the two hours of podcast you will be able to listen to:
~ in collaboration with BLM Bergamo:
– reading, musical selections, interviews
– presentation of artists and activists
– shapes and flans that will unroll while we get our hands and ears dirty
~ from the archives of Cherimus:
– sounds and songs of musical projects such as Chadal, Bisu Ndoto, etc
– interviews with the protagonists of Cherimus’ musical projects
– field-recordings: what was around it?
The first episode features Kristah, soul singer and rapper / trapper of Ghanaian origin living in Bergamo. When interviewed by BLM Bergamo and Derek, she tells her story from her beginnings as a Master DNA, to the suspension in a middle ground that has the rhythm of Afro-trap. Living one’s nature is not just an individual matter but a spark that led Kristah to the co-foundation of The Key Ent., an independent label that brings together several artists and musicians who come from social minorities. We interviewed her on zoom on December 9, 2020, shortly after the release of the first single “Today I don’t go out” by the KID group, formed by Kristah, IBM and Derek.
Graphic: Samīra
Ph: Mouhamed Seck e Julia Hautojärvi
Mix: Pierre Aboa
Produced by BLM Bergamo and Derek MF Di Fabio for Cherimus
1) Master DNA – Afrotrap
2) KID – oggi non esco
3) A-Star – Hyperman
4) Derek Lemar – Radici nello spazio
5) Kristah – No more beggin’
6) F.U.L.A – maldafrica
7) Kristah – Trap the wave
8) Ramma – tutto ok
9) Gorka, Big P, Meth – Te lo giuro
10) Master DNA – cosa c’è
11) IBM – Not my type (feat. Emapee)
12) Slim Gong – Chiamami
13) Equipe 54 – Stilo
14) Fuse ODG – Boa Me ft. Ed Sheeran & Mugeez
15) Bey T, George Kalukusha, Lady Donli, Nemo, Ruth Ronnie, Trina South & Union5 – Kalakuta
16) Burna Boy -Monsters You Made (feat. Chris Martin)
17) Kristah – Mask off
18) David Blank & PNKSAND + il romantico – Foreplay
19) Burna Boy – Real Life feat. Stormzy
20) Beyoncé & Wiz Kid – Brown skin girl
21) Shabaka Hutchings & Kojey radical – no gangster
22) Deggo Yëggo – Thiow Li
One afternoon last December, Sara from BLM Bergamo met Byron Rosero and O.T. Lover: two artists whose families moved to Bergamo when they were children. Byron works primarily with video and as a director, O.T. Lover with dance and both are exploring different media.
In this conversation, the two tell and describe each other: from football cheering for Italy from the neighborhood of Casablanca to dancing in the wheat fields, escaping from the rigidity of the father, from the “millions of cameras” aimed at him in the small mountain villages , to the first savings transformed into film cameras to tell and invent their own narratives. Addressing problems without letting oneself be disheartened by the context and creating communities around one’s passions.
Interview by Sara Mehretab
Mix: Pierre Aboa
Graphic: Samīra e Derek MF Di Fabio
Ph: Mouhamed Seck, O.T. Lover, Byron Rosero
Produced by BLM Bergamo and Derek MF Di Fabio for Cherimus
1) J. Lord – My G
2) Residente – René
3) Tommy Kuti feat. Slim Gong – Come son finito qua
4) Epoque – Petite
5) JAY-Z – The story of O.J
6) Manca, Kaydy Cain, Madd – Baida
7) El Raton – Multicultural
8) ISSAM – Trap Beldi
9) Miriam Ayaba – Credo in te
10) Chris Brown – Day Goodbye
11) Deggo Yëggo – Maman
12) Flawless Real Talk – On my way
13) Jasley- Hooyo
14) Twenti – hey Bro
15) Shygirl – BB
16) Leikeli47 – Attitude
17) Equipe54 – Non Batti l’Equipe
18) KID – Oggi non esco
19) Miriam Ayaba – Sola
20) J. Lord – sixteen
21) Ngawa – Inshalla
22) Deggo Yëggo – Music
