AWATE presents The Unearthed Odyssey

AWATE performs in front of an audience. He is silhouetted by pink stage lights

Published date:: 7 August 2020

Using the vast collections to weave together a rap instrumental album while telling a wider story about why people have to move and what life is like in those new places was something I wanted to do

Hailing from Camden, AWATE joined the Library in the summer of 2019 as Artist-in-Residence for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage, delving through the treasure trove of artefacts in the sound archive to weave together a genre-bending piece exploring the subject of diaspora.

The Unearthed Odyssey

Listeners will journey across continents and cultures, through AWATE's experimental and collaborative music piece which showcases other artists and youth groups. The Unearthed Odyssey is an immersive voyage, incorporating oral history accounts of migration and the music of people on the move over the last 100 years.

This is a rare and exciting opportunity to hear our sound archive come alive through an innovative blend of modern hip-hop production techniques and experimental storytelling.

Following the premiere of The Unearthed Odyssey, the visionary London rapper was joined by journalist and storyteller Kieran Yates for a conversation about AWATE's experience of working with the sound archives. Merging contemporary hip-hop production techniques with artefacts from the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project, this new work will bend time and genres.

‘Working with the British Library Sound Archive has been a real honour for myself. Hip-hop, black music and working class cultures have a shared characteristic in using found materials and refreshing them. Using the vast collections to weave together a rap instrumental album while telling a wider story about why people have to move and what life is like in those new places was something I wanted to do in the face of the rise of fascism and lack of context about our human predicament today. Stories create empathy and hopefully these stories give some reasons to why our world is so diverse and why so many are suffering and persevering’.
AWATE

A rare and exciting opportunity to hear our sound archive come alive through an innovative blend of modern hip-hop production techniques and experimental storytelling. Following the premiere of The Unearthed Odyssey, the visionary London rapper was joined by journalist and storyteller Kieran Yates for a conversation about AWATE's experience of working with the sound archives.

List of recordings featured in The Unearthed Odyssey

Spoken word recordings:

Betty Janjua interviewed by Emmeline Ledgerwood, 2014, Interviews with Conservative Association Members in Surrey and Sussex, C1688/03 © British Library Board.
‘Ly’ from Barbados interviewed by Julia Hallam, 1992, Hallam Nursing Interviews, C768/04 © British Library Board.
Mouna Eddrou Webster interviewed by Carolyn Landau, 2008, Moroccan Memories in Britain, C1237/63 © Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum (now known as Migrants Organise). <https://www.migrantsorganise.org>
'I have crossed an ocean', performed by Grace Nichols, (1984), 1st International Feminist Book Fair, C154/1 C24 © Grace Nichols, 1st International Feminist Book Fair
Third World women writers' discussion, 1984, 1st International Feminist Book Fair, C154/12 © Ellen Kuzwayo, Nawāl Saʻdāwī, 1st International Feminist Book Fair
Sybil Wulwick interviewed by Alan Dein, 1989, Central British Fund Kindertransport Interviews, C526/65 © Central British Fund for Jewish Relief (now known as World Jewish Relief, <https://www.worldjewishrelief.org/>). Sybil Wulwick discusses her role in the Kindertransport (Children’s Transport), a humanitarian rescue programme which ran between November 1938 and September 1939.

Music recordings:

After Idi Amin - The situation of music in Buganda, 1996, Susanne Kratzer C778/1 © Suzanne Kratzer. A documentary audio programme on the music of the Buganda kingdom in Uganda, realised by Susanne Kratzer as coursework for her MMus degree at SOAS, University of London, in 1996. The programme mostly focuses on musical instruments and playing styles, but also touches on the socio-political context in Buganda between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s.
Chutney Style Song, 2007, 1CD0269007 BD20 © Smithsonian Folkways SFWCD ©, Sampat Dino Boodram, Errol Balkisson, Sampat Raymond Seetal. This song comes from Trinidad & Tobago.
Bailey Mildred, Rockin’ Chair by Hoagy Carmichael performed by Mildred Bailey with Matty Malneck and his Orchestra, 1932,Rockin' Chair/Carmichael, 1CD0056831, 1CD0029818_BD08, © BLUEBIRD, Hoagy Carmichael/Peermusic UK, Hoagy Carmichael/Reservoir
Peggy Harper African Recordings, 1966, C1074/5 C1-5 © Nigeria Field Society. Most probably used as illustrations for a lecture by recordist and choreography, Peggy Harper.
Indonesia, 1990, David Hughes Collection, C1450/15; 11 © David Hughes, Ediwar. Field recordings made by ethnomusicologist David Hughes in 1990 including demonstrations of various musical instruments.
Laḥn al-ʻAṣfūr, 1999, Mahrajān wa Mu'tamar al musiqā al-Arabiya al-thāmin, 1CD0223962 © Dār Al-Opera Al-Maṣriya/The Egyptian Opera House, Wadih Francis Al Safi, Rahbani brothers.

Sound effects & wildlife recordings:

With thanks to KS2 and KS3 children at Fairbeats who took part in workshops and are featured in the composition. For additional production support we would like to thank Gabriel Ryder.

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