Hello Lost in Sound community! We’re rolling a new series of articles aimed at connecting creative communities worldwide.
It has always been the creatives who think outside the box, have the most fun, and find innovative solutions to the challenges we face. By connecting creative communities worldwide not only do we become aware of new possibilities for our own creative expression but we learn more about the world, what connects us as people, and what challenges need solutions. We serve as inspiration and support for one another to create the most love, beauty, and unity we can imagine.
African Drumming – Sego & Centre Des Hommes
Travel and music have been two of the ways that I have learned the most in my life, about myself, about others, and about the world. Seeing and experiencing new places and new people opens our eyes to previously unexplored areas of the infinite possibilities inherent in life, awakening us to new levels and forms of creativity. Music is the basis of everything; from atoms to cells to our bodies to trees to planets to stars, the entire universe is always vibrating. Music is embedded in all of us and serves as a universal language, allowing us to communicate with anyone, from anywhere, and connect on a level beyond words.
I have been running Drums For Development for the last three years. It started after living in West Africa for half a year and was built around the idea of accelerating positive development worldwide by connecting creative people. We host local events to connect people, plan trips for creative connection, and support sustainable development projects. Currently, I am raising money to get Sego, a West African drum builder, community organizer, and cultural creative, and the West African head of our organization, an education in permaculture and sustainable farming. I know money can be tight for us, afterall we’re changing the rules and it’s hard to find widespread support for that. That’s why I’m asking you for help; you know what it means to change the rules and make things possible by working together.
What unites us?
We love music.
Music can either serve as a form of distraction because we’re pissed about how things are OR music can create a space that inspires us to expand our consciousness and connect with people from all walks of life, in a form beyond words. That’s what Lost in Sound is all about.
We are creatives.
The world is going through, and is in need of, some serious changes. It’s becoming clearer by the day that the way we’ve been doing things is not going to cut it anymore. It’s always been us, the creatives, who recognize these things first and start to find solutions because we know how to think outside of the box.
We are all connected.
Though Africa might seem far away, we’re connected to them too. In order to move forward and create harmony in the world, we need to work together. Connecting with creatives far away helps us to blow the lid off of the box and gain new layers of creative insight.
Sego has been supporting sustainable change through the arts for the last decade. He brings people together to teach in schools, build much needed infrastructure, help out in medical clinics, find environmentally and friendly ways to modernize, and he funds all of these projects through his music, making and selling drums and art to raise the money. As we creatives know, this is a tall order and Sego has been doing it in Africa no less, where just getting through the day is a full time job.
The greatest need in his community right now is to have enough food, and industrial agriculture has been spreading rapidly; local farmers believe these “modern” techniques will bring them greater resiliency. Unfortunately, Sego doesn’t know much about farming and can’t provide an alternative to the environmentally destructive methods that are being introduced. Helping him get an education in permaculture will give him the knowledge to bring these techniques back to local farmers, create local food resiliency, and ultimately spread these ideas even further, when we open The Living and Learning Center for Sustainability and Creative Culture that we are designing in his hometown Kpalime, Togo.
In Africa, a little money goes a long way to help a fellow creative have a serious positive impact on the way his community evolves. This is a call to blow the lid off of the box of what we think of our community and recognize that creativity is what bonds us, no matter where we are.
Drums For Development on Facebook
Akpe! (“Thank You” in Sego’s tribal language, Ewe)
