Tschuku Tschuku Debuts New Album at Acoustic Friday

Elephant dung burns in the Café Prestige courtyard and a crowd bays for the show to go on as the first drops of water fall over the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre's Acoustic Friday.'Ondaanisa yo pOmudhime' (Dance of the Rubber Tree), created between 2018 and 2021, has taken many forms.It is a performance art and a museum theatre piece in Cameroon, Germany and South Africa.It is a collective listening and radio performance at the Zürcher Theater Spektakel in Switzerland.It is the result of Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja's PhD performance and archival research at the University of Cape Town, and, finally, it is the blood-red square being sold at a CD table by the artist's sister last Friday.Drawing on Namibian sound archives and orature, 'Ondaanisa yo pOmudhime' is launched as a stirring, spiritual and restorative nine-track album recorded in Oshiwambo, Shona, Otjiherero and English.“'Ondaanisa yo pOmudhime' also draws on other archives of the body, place and material culture such as omudhime [rubber tree] that is used for different forms of erasure,” says Mushaandja.An album concerned with love, land and prayer, and acknowledging and communing with those who walked before us, 'Ondaanisa yo pOmudhime' is also an “an ode to our struggles and the wars of the ghetto” in songs like 'Katutura Blues', featuring EDG-MIA.The album additionally features musicians Jackson Wahengo, Lovisa the Superstar and Diolini, as well as chants and slogans from the 2020 ShutItAllDown protests in 'Pamberi ne Rudo'.“Wahengo is one of the best songwriters in the country. I respect and learn a lot from his musicality and how it always draws on the historical process,” says Mushaandja.“I learn a lot from working with younger artists too. Lovisa brings deep-seated Shambo-related knowledge. Diolini is the next big thing, her voice takes us places, moving us between the affective and the spirit. EDG-MIA [Elrico Gawanab] brings funk and beat to the project, mixing hip-hop and Afro-beat, but still maintaining a unique sound from Katutura.”As the album is officially introduced at Acoustic Friday, Diolini takes the stage, crooning in soulful, sultry tones that glide through the atmosphere, accompanied by musicians Sam Batola, Piu Fernando, Chris Eiseb, Jean-Pierre Ntsika and Raymond Mupfumira.The mood is festive. The crowd responds, claps, moves, and is unbothered by the drizzle.Mushaandja interjects, dances, abandons the stage, salutes the undisciplined, and draws attention to the smouldering elephant dung.“We're not alone. We don't walk alone,” says Mushaandja, a line of shells bright white in his locs.“The elephant dung is a method of clearing and cleansing the space, acknowledging the ancestral and the invisible audience. It's a prayer.”From the ensemble's name (Tschuku Tschuku), which recalls the sound of a train transporting migrants on both transcendent and literal journeys, Mushaandja's work offers a passage through time where those living under colonial rule sang as a means to survive spiritually, and in protest to the present day where the struggle continues.“When I make music, it always comes from places of struggle, love and migration. This project was an academic project, but it is a way I am able to translate my research into the language of music, which is universal,” says Mushaandja.“It is how I am able to find songs recorded in the 1950s in colonial archives, like 'Kapundja', which I recognise from hearing on the radio. That is how I am able to play them, as a way of heritage preservation.”Produced by Sam Batola and Mutsa Lairdman, 'Ondaanisa yo pOmudhime's' physical CD is also a striking work of art and design.“Visuals by Elrico Gawanab at Turipamwe and Tuli Mekondjo's collage of visuals mined from my archival research are a big part of this record,” says Mushaandja.At the album launch, the rain begins to fall in earnest and the crowd revels in it a while before moving upstairs to Café Prestige.“I make music for every human being,” says Mushaandja, responding to the question of who should listen to the album. And regarding the rain, Mushaandja notes a trend of rainy Acoustic Fridays. “I was very moved by the audience who remained in the rain with us…” Mushaandja says. “Who gave us permission to continue playing.”

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