Quick! What’s the first thing you think of when you think of the Congo? The Belgian cartoonist Hergé set one of his adventures for Tintin in the Congo. Billy Joel sang about the colonizing “Belgians in the Congo” in his classic protest song ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’.
The Congo has been plagued by wars and more recently, they’ve been plagued by the Ebola virus. If you’re a student of music, you might well have heard of Papa Wemba, the “King of Rumba Rock” who put Congolese rumba, soukous, and ndombolo music genres on the map. Still, that’s not a lot of good news to come out of Central Africa.
The Delia Arts Foundation is about to make that all change. Together with NDARO Culture, in the city of Bukavo, the Delia Arts Foundation is investing in a bright musical future that will ensure that one day soon, a breakout artist will rise from this culturally rich part of the DRC and grace the world’s musical stages with their talent.
The Delia-Ndaro Art Culture Center
The Delia Arts Foundation has, as its mission, the humanitarian goal of supporting music in conflict zones. With the infrastructure to support up-and-coming musicians, how else is the world to hear their stories and share in their sound?
Money is raised and cultural centers are established in places such as Gaza – and now Bukavu – on the southern tip of Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Everything from recording equipment to music programs is provided for artists in these war-torn areas. The hope is that by being given a platform to express themselves, local musicians will in turn be of cultural benefit to their communities and go on to make music a full-time career.
The Delia Arts Foundation has teamed up with NDARO Culture, a cultural space that was created in 2013 by Thomas Lusango to ensure cultural accessibility for local artists.
While their ideas around not waiting for the government to provide a cultural scene for the artists of Bukavu were strong, the premises themselves were in need of improvement. They were also in need of that which makes good music and culture all the stronger: collaboration.
Enter: the Delia Arts Foundation. Together with Delia, and in cooperation with The Music Fund, AfriSCENE, Kidogos, and NDARO Culture, a new vision has emerged and the ‘Delia-Ndaro Art Culture’ has been born.
This is the next exciting step in what will hopefully be many to develop a network of cultural spaces around the world. While we can’t necessarily solve world peace, we can together provide accessibility to marginalized communities and musicians living in conflict zones.
The Programs and Departments of Delia-Ndaro Art Culture
Of course, it’s not as simple as keeping the lights on in a community hall and providing a few guitars and djembe drums for curious locals to come and jam when they feel like it. The aim is to be able to tell Bukavu’s story to an international audience through art and music. To do this, musicians need to be able to earn a living plying their trade, provided they’re up to scratch.
There is an entire music department, with workshops on sound engineering, music production, music business (promotion and gaining exposure), and online concerts. From the practicalities of instrument repair to the theory of music, no stone is left unturned in providing artists with the solid grounding in musical appreciation that they will need if they are to share their talent with the world.
By expressing themselves on a bigger stage and sharing their stories, they will in turn be saving spoken word traditions and musical culture that is sadly disappearing from the region. A Photography and Cinema program ensures that the Congo’s cultural legacies will live on in perpetuity in the medium of film, with local screenings and exhibitions planned to celebrate this, as well as connect the community.
The genres of Poetry and Slam, as well as Theater and Humor, are each given their own departments – a nod to the need for modern cultural interpretations where poets can express themselves and comedians can make jokes, while a country learns to heal from its war-torn past.
Dance has its own department too, along with Modeling. Stereotypes around conflict that is still ongoing in the Kivu region are to be challenged by showcasing the beauty of its locals through modeling and supporting a mix of traditional, modern, and contemporary dance.
All of these endeavors are then funneled through an Events and Exposure department, which will host several festivals. The Delia-Ndaro Art Culture Center is truly alive with possibility.
The Impact of Art
By providing affordable rehearsal and recording space in a venue that is connecting musicians and artists, the added benefit is that young people from the area will discover their own voices and find new ways to express themselves in healthy, positive ways.
Through the medium of art, music, and performance, Bukavu’s cultural history will be shared with an international audience while local wounds are healed. Empowering women to share their struggles in the face of conflict is another intention and goal of Delia Arts Foundation and its partners.
The impact of art is such that it simultaneously changes the lives of the creator and the consumer. Keeping Bukavu’s youth away from violence, poverty, and conflict by offering them the choice to create music and art and contribute to their culture will in turn create powerful content that will resonate with the world at large. The Congo will become known for more than just a nasty colonial legacy and lingering conflict.
Future Funding
The Delia-Ndaro Art Culture Center is about more than just creating a sustainable local economy. It is a safe space to celebrate art and nurture the abundance of Congolese talent that deserves to be shared with the world.
As Congolese politician and independence leader Patrice Lumumba once said, “A minimum of comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue.” With comfort in the form of providing the opportunity to celebrate Congolese culture and create art, the practice of virtue has a new home in Bukavu’s Delia-Ndaro Art Culture Center
Feel free to contact us at: hello@delia-arts.org should you know of someone who can be of assistance.
