Mandinka / Kou Chifusa
The Rhythms of the Passionate Land - West Africa
Kou Chifusa
To West Africa,
whose music is indispensable in my life, I started my journey of 25,000km, 36 hours.
The journey was to witness the roots of their music.
I had always been intrigued by all kinds of music of tropical origins, and I had heard that Africa, especially West Africa, was the mecca of those music.
'African music' would probably remind everyone of a 'drum' - the oldest musical instrument and the simplest one that can produce a sound for anyone who plays it.
With the simple drums, amazingly, people who do not have musical notes or even letters have conveyed their rhythms born 1,500 years ago.
These rhythms include voices of labour, songs with strong messages and unique harmonies.
Visiting Guinee and Senegal,
my shooting this time went completely differently from the previous ones.
Searching Africa for 'Africa', I stopped by at the spots in the countryside and fishing villages, with my camera on my back and a sleeping bag in my hand.
I moved from a place to another more slowly than usual.
Days passed totally differently from the days in Tokyo.
Time was based on the sun.
People there did not have the sense of minutes or seconds.
I took off my watch several days after my arrival.
I wanted to share the life with the local people.
I drank water from the well and ate the same food as they did so that I would be able to shoot the 'live' life.
The photographs have turned out to be with a documentary touch.
Although Goree Island
is a tourist place now, it used to be an island for slave trading.
From this island, thousands of African people were sent to places across the Atlantic, which changed the world dramatically.
Their music traveled within their bodies, influenced a lot of music in the world, changed from its original styles and has handed down to the present world.
We can easily find the African spirit in the music in North and South America.
In the Countryside,
few are familiar with television or radio.
Music should be something played by someone in front of them.
'Live' is the only style of their music.
The sound of drums moves everyone's hands and feet, then their whole bodies, and make them dance.
The young dance powerfully, and the old with their own unique phrases.
Naturally, when the dancers get excited, the rhythms become faster.
When the feeling gets high, not only the heartbeat but also the music become faster - I found this humane and natural, not like in the Western music where we have been taught to keep the rhythm perfectly to the end.
In Baobab Woods,
I sometimes practiced the drums.
The sound soon travelled crisply through the dry land.
Children came running from a distance to dance to my song.
This happend several times and I was convinced that music was a part of everyone's life here.
With my djembe, the children danced.
They enjoyed music purely to make it music.
I felt I was in a piece of the scenery of their life.
In Tokyo,
I have been playing African percussion in an amateur band called 'Foliba Tokio' which took shape three years ago.
This time in Guinee, I participated in a djembe workshop which kept my hands red.
In Senegal, I learned how to make drums, and I now enjoy making them myself.
The sound of djembe will stay in me all the time from now on.