Following the effect of the COVID-19 that snowballed into 2020, things got worse for many people who ply their trade in the live music industry.
Concerts, tours, and festivals were cancelled. Clubs, bars, and restaurants were closed with music and entertainment community being the earliest to be hit and one of the least equipped to endure such a disruption, but the brief struggle came with creativity.
The Mpakaboari LongJohn Foundation (MLJ FDN) works during the lockdown caused by COVID-19 such as emergency assistance, work opportunities, and community engagement for hip-hop and Afrobeats musicians was documented as a music project entitled “Succour”, an astute experience in Afro musicianship.
Succour album which represents the struggles and success stories of musicians during the hard times has five solid songs in it, this includes Relief, All that matters, Yours, Breathe, and Redolence.
The album houses sub-themes of talents loss, their reactions to it, their belief in camaraderie, the competitiveness and vanity of musicians and their often-hidden disposition towards love.
Some of the tracks talk about age, illness, or how disaster threatens a long career of musicians, and many have nowhere to turn.
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All That Matters talks about how these musicians who are known for saving the world with their music our entire lives now found themselves in the crisis. These are dignified people who never think to ask for help. Our lifesaving programs turn despair into hope.
Relief talks about how the help came through for the musicians who got grants to keep artists healthy with pro bono medical care and provide financial support that keeps the lights on and food on the table.
Musicians who have made a living playing blues, jazz, and roots music know they can call our office at any time or walk through our doors for help in solving an emergency. We average 30 individual musician emergency cases a day and approximately 9,000 assists every year. We prevent homelessness with housing assistance.
Significantly, this album seems to be based on morose themes of hope and uncertainty in different forms and it comes by way of support, family and recovery.
Other moments of boisterous lines are also present on this album, but their sound more convincing, believable and more compelling on the darker, more morose tracks. While a record like “Redolence” takes braggadocio from the angle of the new dawn.
Sometimes the inspirations that came with the challenges also inspires longing, which shows that “Succour” is the best Afrobeats album so far and that’s facts only.
and then