Dj d strukt5/15/2023 Soziale Gefüge benötigen beides: Zusammenhalt und Platz für den Einzelnen als Einzelnen. In the end, it needed the (colonial) archive material of a German archive, remixed by a Kenyan artist, financed by German funding, to keep them at least partially alive. It is this particular moment that also illustrates that the meaning of the original source is not only important for the producer in his personal search of identity, but also insofar as it makes sonically obvious that all these traditions featured on Sacred Groves have disappeared. Although the sample is physically absent it still resonates. This is maybe the most magical moment of the track. Towards the end the track suddenly stops, and the rhythm part is resumed for a full 16-bar loop, without the heaviness of the bass drum. In «Chant of the Umuhara» the different layers of the sampling material and rhythmic elements are composed carefully, always leaving much space to the sample to unfold, but not without adding his own substantial note to it. With his careful procession of traditional sounds, DJ Raph definitely goes one step further. Sampling archival footage has become fashionable in recent years (see for example the Dutch initiative RE:VIVE) and has not always been successful in being more than a great institution-funded opportunity of music-making and a playful (often nevertheless artistically convincing) experiment with unknown sound material. First, he has chosen all samples for aesthetic reasons out of the vast corpus of the archive: «I chose sounds that struck me for their beauty, vibe, or sound.» Having said that, the project seems to be a deeply personal one: «My interest in the music was part of a larger search for the lore of different original African societies that would help me in the construction of my own worldview», he explains. How does it happen that DJ Raph has sampled this particular tradition, which obviously seems to be distant from his own position in present-day Kenya, and which was never intended to be heard outside of its ritual context? He justifies his choice with both aesthetics and the contextual meaning. (A short Internet search tells me that the cult was geographically located in the area of today’s Rwanda and is not in practice anymore.) It further reads that the song sampled here «was never performed outside of its ritual context so as not to risk the wrath of the spirits». For the track in question we can read that the sample comes from the «sacred music of the cult of Ryangombe». An information sheet updates the querist about the origins and makes the sampling process highly transparent. Looking for the sample sources doesn’t take much time.
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