It’s well known that Sierra Leone suffered a decade of awful warfare through the 1990s. Less known, are the effects of the war on the country’s rich musical heritage. Instruments disappeared and communities were demolished, breaking the important teacher-student chains.
Since peace prevailed, there’s little live music in the capital, Freetown and seemingly only small pockets of surviving traditional music in the provinces. There is, however, a huge appetite amongst young people for music, especially to tell stories of the past and of their hopes for the future.
In early June 2012, I was funded by London based,The Joe Strummer Foundation, to set up a recording studio and music education centre as part of a hub in Freetown run by a charity named WAYout worldwide arts for youth.
WAYout have been training conflict affected and disadvantaged young people in documentary film making and video editing, giving them both a way to tell their stories, communicate with the world, and a skill set which greatly increases their chances of employment.
The studio expanded this training into sound, providing access to the great number of youth interested in music, and recognising the lack of engineers, producers and facilities to record and produce.
With an allocated budget, I sourced and sent out the following equipment:
-Macbook pro 13″ (being able to revert to battery power proved essential with such temperamental power supplies) running Logic pro 9, waves FX plugins and Kontakt 5.
-Line 6 toneport UX 8 music interface*
-Soundcraft 24 track powered desk (donated by Strummerville)
-Spirit absolute 2 passive monitor speakers
-M-music controller keyboard
-External visual monitor
-Pair of PA speakers(donated by Strummerville)
-5 piece Pearl export drumkit with Paiste cymbals
-Hartke bass amp*
-Peavey modelling guitar amp(donated by Strummerville)
-Korg SP200 full size weighted keyboard*
-2 Aria strat guitars, 1 Aria bass*
-1 Hudson steel string acoustic guitar*
-Studio projects C1 vocal mic
-Samson condenser mic*
-3 music Technica dynamic mics*
-1 music Technica boundary mic
-2 pairs of studio headphones*
-Surge protectors, soldering equipment
-mic stands, leads, connectors, drum sticks and brushes, spare drum skins, guitar and bass strings*
*Equipment generously supplied at a discounted rate by Strings ‘n’ Things, a family run music shop based in Bridgwater, UK.
I followed the equipment out there and spent 5 weeks training a group of 15 young people in studio practice, production, recording, mixing, mastering and instrumental tuition.
I pulled in musicians and groups I could find in the area, offering free recordings, which I used to train my students.
Blackstreet Family
A 50 strong street gang who have a base near the national stadium, very close to the studio. Once notorious for violence and drug use, their core members are making an effort to pursue peace and religion. Hazel Chandler, one of the trustees of WAYout had met the gang’s leader, Shargwan, and struck up a relationship with him in the past, helping the gang to make a music video. Asked by Hazel to try and continue this relationship, I was introduced and found them to have a 10 song album they were wanting to record.
Diallo receiving the album
Hussle and Tussle music video directed by Brian Mcandrew
Supercombo
This outfit are hailed as Sierra Leone’s no.1 live band and they play regularly to an older audience at a venue close to the studio. They’re all in their 50s/60s and have been working as a live band since before the war. They are a dying breed of ‘Salone’ musicians, have no students and few, if any young followers.
We recorded 3 tracks for them.
Diobate Mori
I met Diobate as he was waiting to play a wedding gig near the studio. He had the look of a serious player and turned out to be such a warm character. He and the rest of his band are from Guinea and they work playing mainly for people from the Fula tribe. They play for hours on end and are paid in donations from guests.
I recorded this track for him in return for some wonderful guitar licks.
At a wedding gig
Osman is another person Hazel Chandler asked me to get in touch with. In his teens, he has a very typical story of a disrupted family background and has been living on the streets for some time. He came to us with some vocals he wanted to record. We produced him and I composed an original backing track.
In September 2014 I was invited to give a presentation of the project to students from the Fana Folkehøgskule in Bergen, Norway.
The studio
