Release Date: 25 February 2022
Label: Six Degrees
Packaging Type: Slip Sleeve (CD or Vinyl)
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 657036130517
Genres: World Music Africa
Description
Landmark collection of powerful field recordings produced by Grammy® Award-Winner Ian Brennan in collaboration with Marilena Umuhoza Delli.
Six Degrees Records is proud to announce a landmark new album from Witch Camp (Ghana); I’ve Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be. Produced by GRAMMY® Award-winning producer and author Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project) in collaboration with his wife, Italian-Rwandan filmmaker, author, and photographer, Marilena Umuhoza Delli, whose idea it was to record the album inspired by her own upbringing.
Marilena says “My own mother is a disabled widow from Rwanda and is the same age as most of these women we met at the Witch Camps. We grew up poor, living in a factory. It is impossible for me to look at these women’s circumstance and not see my own mother and an inhumane fate that but for a matter of geography could as well have been hers. It is impossible to think that this practice continues in the 21st century.�.
I’ve Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be collects extraordinary field recordings made at Ghana’s infamous “witch camps�; settlements where these women accused of witchcraft can find safety and community; these women persecuted as witches are often overwhelmed by mental health issues and physical illnesses, while others are shunned and ostracized as a ruse to steal their land after their husband’s passing.
Marilena says; “Belief in witchcraft is sometimes used as simple scapegoating for the arrival of bad luck such as foul weather or illness. More commonly, it is a justification for pre-existing hate and prejudice. A member of my own family was driven out of her village in Malawi as a child after she was accused of being a witch due to having a white father— a fate that could have been my own if our places of birth were simply swapped.�.
Recorded at multiple locations in Ghana, the songs featured on I’ve Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be are largely “instant compositions,� created using all and any objects from the immediate environment for instrumentation; corn husks, a teapot, tin cans, tree branches, and even a balloon left over from the political rally. Over six hours of music was recorded in 100 clandestine gatherings from across three villages, with all but one person singing solo for the first time. Sung in regional dialect or the lesser-spoken languages of Mampruli and Dagbani, the lyrics are untranslated and indecipherable even too many locals as they are not in the dominant languages of English or Akan.
Marilena Umuhoza Delli and Ian Brennan have dedicated their lives and careers to providing a platform for the censored or unheard, spanning those targeted for albinism on Tanzania’s Ukerewe Island and genocide survivors in both Rwanda and Cambodia, to the homeless community in Oakland, CA, prisoners at Zomba Prison in Malawi, and now, the women of Ghana’s witch camps.
Tracklisting
Ceu
The Turbans
Bossacucanova & Roberto Menescal
Undersea Poem
Touristes
Warren Cuccurullo & Ustad Sultan Khan
Bob Forrest
Dom La Nena
Madala Kunene
Lindigo
Oluko Imo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Various Artists
Super Biton
Super Biton
Black Truth Rhythm Band
