LA PAILLOTE TAKPEKPE: THE FOREIGN EXCHANGE

ACCRA [dot] ALT returned to Alliance Francaise at the end of January, to kick off this year’s new La Paillote Takpekpe series. This event happens on the last Wednesday of every month and is an opportunity for independent cultural organizations in Accra to let their imaginations run wild by planning an innovative art event across the grounds of Alliance Francaise.

We invited several IND!E FUSE artists to return to the stage along with a few new folks. Trust – they did not disappoint. More than 500 people came out – on a Wednesday night – to hear some different music. The audience spread out on blankets, steps, and seats all over to witness this live music lawn jam. Fatau opened the show with a Hausa soul chock-full of slippery yet intricate breaks and bridges to kept the listener mesmerized.

Jojo Abot caused a wicked fury of joy with her AfroBeat getdown:

JOJO ABOT

Kyekeku + SynPop of FaintMedal brought rapper Yaa Pono onstage to encore the jam that closed out IND!E FUSE – “I Go Feel You Die” – to yet another thunderous, standing ovation:

KYEKYEKU

SYNPOP

YAA PONO

Lady Jay + A.R.T. held us captive with acoustic lullabies of how beautiful being Black truly is:

LADY JAY

Juberu migrated his family’s Nigerien blues mojo to Accra and had the audience sitting deep and happy inside those funky guitars:

JUBERU

Pidgen lyricist Kay-Ara, also a chart-topper on the NPR’s “Top 100 of 2011” List, has a charasmatic griot flow that definitely had heads bouncing:

KAY-ARA

The Foreign Exchange also featured live bike art installations by The Flat Land Boys; a screening of Casa Africa’s Africalls? (2011), a documentary that explores how history, place and racial identity shape the work of seven multimedia artists across the African continent; and a discussion on how to cooperatively stimulate and sustain an art-active community in Accra and Ghana.

ACCRA [dot] ALT‘s next La Paillote Takpekpe event takes place the last Wednesday in September 2012 at Alliance Francaise.