Tsikaya is a music project with composers in the rural areas of Angola. This ten year old project is an invitation to composers and musicians in the rural areas of Angola's vast countryside to contribute with new music and record both new and old repertoire. Through a combination of local networks and regional cultural actors, the project facillitates the regeneration and renewal of these cultures through the documentation, re-examination and recontextualisation of musical traditions, transforming them from deteriorated fragments of memory to a vital, organic part of contemporary life across Angola. The partner organizations are Pangeiart, Bismas and ADRA.
sample 01 Grupo da Hanha do Norte
sample 02 Grupo de Manuel Garoto in Dombe Grande
For more information on the Tsikaya project please contact PangeiArt: info@pangeiart.org
Tsikaya was initiated by Victor Gama in 1997 on a field trip to Cuito-Cuanavale in the Cuando-Cubango province in Angola. The musicians who participated then, took the opportunity of an open microphone and a tape recorder to send out messages to other parts of Angola, as this was the only means at that moment to do so. One of the songs recorded is called Mensagem a Luanda, (Message to Luanda) and the singer expresses his worries and concerns about the situation and problems afflicting his remote village and peoples, and asks for assistance from the capital city.
In 1998, still during the conflict, Victor Gama criss-crossed the north of Namíbia recording the music of refugee musicians from the Nganguela region as well as those from the Cunene region. In 2003, the end of the war brought a new window of oportunity to visit and record musicians and composers from areas once forbiden of access due to the hostilities. Victor Gama is now working in partnership with Cristóvão Kagibanga, João António and Elieizer Teca from the cultural association BISMAS in Benguela in order to create the first digital archive of music from the rural areas starting in the province of Benguela.