News — music

The O’Jays, an R&B ensemble from Canton, Ohio, was formed in 1958 by childhood friends Eddie Levert, who was born in Bessemer, Alabama in 1942 and moved to Canton at the age of 8, and Walter Williams, Sr. born in Canton in 1942.  They became best friends and a singing duet in 1958. The duo invited other schoolmates who could sing, William Powell, born in Canton in 1942; Bobby Massey, born in Canton in 1942; and Bill Isles, born in 1941 in McAntenville, North Carolina, also joined.  The five, all of whom attended McKinley High School in Canton, first called themselves the Triumphs but in a1960 they changed their name to the Mascots.

In 1961, The Mascots released a single, “Miracles,” on the Cincinnati-based King label. Their song was actively promoted by Eddie O’Jay, a popular disc jockey in Cleveland, Ohio. As a tribute to him, they in 1963 rename themselves the O’Jays.

The group’s first chart hit was “Lonely Drifter” in 1963.  Two years later in 1965, they moved to Los Angeles, California and earned their first national R&B hit, “Lipstick Traces on a Cigarette, which peaked at # 28 on the R&B chart.  The next year, 1966, the group reached # 12 on the R&B chart with “Stand in for Love.”

Kenny Gamble & Leon A. Huff signed the O’Jays to their Philadelphia International label in 1972 and there they had their first and only million-selling single, “Back Stabbers” which reached #1 on the R&B chart and no. #3 pop on the US Billboard Hot 100 later that year.  In 1973, their hit “Love Train” followed, peaking at #9 on the R&B chart. Unusual for an R&B song, the lyrics of “Love Train” promoted global unity. While not as successful as “Back Stabbers,” it went gold, selling more than 500,000 copies. Many music critics considered it the birth of Philadelphia-style soul music.

The O’Jays received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 1997. In 2001, the O’Jays’ For the Love album released earlier in the year, was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Traditional R&B Vocal Album. Additionally, they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004 and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. Four years later, in 2009, BET awarded the group the Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2011 they received the Trumpet Lifetime Achievement Award. The O’Jays were inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame in 2013, and in 2019, they receive the Soul Tracks Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2019, it was discovered that much of the O’Jays original music scores and recording documents were destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire on the backlot of Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles, California.

William Leonard Roberts II, also known as Rick Ross, is a rapper, songwriter, and entrepreneur. Roberts was born on January 28, 1976, to William Leonard Roberts Sr. and Tommie Roberts in Clarksdale, Mississippi but the family relocated to Miami, Florida, when Ross was young. He attended Miami Carol City Senior High School graduating in 1994. He then attended Albany State University in Albany, Georgia, on a football scholarship before dropping out of college and taking a job in the local construction industry.

In 2000, Roberts’s music career began when he signed with Suave House Records and adopted the rap name, Teflon Don. He made an appearance on Eric Sermon’s 2000 rap album, Def Squad Presents Erick Onasis. Roberts later signed with Slip N Slide Records. In 2006, Roberts released his debut album, Port of Miami that feature hit songs like “Hustlin” and “Push It.” The album was certified platinum, selling over million units. In 2008, Roberts released his second album, Trilla, featuring the singles “Speedin,” “The Boss,” and “Here I Am.” The album would be certified gold, selling over 500,000 units.  In 2009, he released his third album, Deeper Than Rap that features the singles “Mafia Music,” “Magnificent,” “All I Really Want,” and “Maybach Music 2.” That album was also certified.

In 2010, Roberts released Teflon Don with the singles “Super High,” “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast), and “Aston Martin Music.” That album also sold more than 500,000 units. Two years later he released his fifth studio album, God Forgives, I Don’t featuring singles “Touch N’ You,” “So Sophisticated,” “Hold Me Back,” and “Diced Pineapples.” The album was certified gold, selling more than 500,000 units. 

Roberts released other albums including Mastermind (2014), Hood Billionare (2014), Black Market (2015), Rather Than You Me (2017), and Port of Miami 2 (2019).  In 2008, he launched his record label called Maybach Music Group, which signed Olubowale “Wale” Akintimehin, Robert “Meek Mill” Williams, Omari “Omarion” Grandberry, and Richard “Gunplay” Morales Jr. 

Despite his music success, Roberts was involved in several controversies, including rap feuds with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. Adding to the controversy, Roberts had legal issues, including a lawsuit from former drug kingpin Ricky “Freeway Rick” Ross, who accused him of stealing his name. He also has a history of health problems that included seizures. On January 27, 2013, Roberts and his girlfriend were targets of a drive-by shooting on his 37th birthday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They escaped uninjured. On March 2, 2018, Roberts suffered a heart attack after being found unresponsive at home in Miami, Florida. He was on life support for 48 hours but recovered. 

Despite the controversies, Roberts remains in the entertainment business as of 2021. Ross has four children including Toie Roberts, William Roberts III, Berkeley Hermes Roberts, and Billon Leonard Roberts. He was one time engaged to Lira “Galore” Mercer.

Jamal Derek Jr. Francique, a 28-year-old father of two who was active in the Mississauga music scene, was gunned down by a Peel Regional Police officer on January 7, 2020. He died in hospital three days later.

Details of the circumstances surrounding Francique’s death are scant and contradictory. On the evening of January 7, plainclothes officers investigating drug activity at a housing complex on Winston Churchill Boulevard, south of Eglinton Avenue and Southampton Drive in Mississauga, Ontario, fired multiple shots into Francique’s vehicle while he was driving. The officers had intended to arrest Francique who was a “person of interest” but, as Constable Sarah Patten told reporters at the scene, Francique had allegedly driven towards the officers and so they opened fire on his car. According to supporters of the slain man’s family, Francique had been shot in the back of the head. A cellphone video taken by a nearby resident shows several Peel Regional Police officers gathered around Francique after he had been pulled out of his vehicle. An officer can be seen kicking the fatally wounded man while he lay on the ground.

Francique’s grieving family wants to know what happened. They do not understand why the investigation has taken so long or why it took eight police officers to arrest one man. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU), a police watchdog that has been accused of holding a pro-police bias, issued a report on January 20, 2021, in which it said there were no reasonable grounds to charge the officer who shot Francique in front of his parents’ home. Knia Singh, the lawyer for the family, says the report contains major inconsistencies that demonstrate that the SIU does not conduct thorough and accurate investigations.

The story of Jamal Francique’s death might have remained unknown were it not for worldwide protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. The Peel Regional Police shooting of D’Andre Campbell in Brampton, Ontario, and the police intervention that resulted in the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto have sparked a growing concern in Canada about systemic racism and police brutality. On June 13, 2020, several hundred people attended a “Justice for Jamal” vigil in Mississauga to honor him and to shine a light on his case. Author-journalist Desmond Cole addressed the gathering: “Everywhere we look in this country, it’s the same story with police and Black and Indigenous people, and we are tired. But we are not defeated by any means.”

Conductor, clarinetist, and composer W. Rudolph Dunbar was born on November 26, 1907, in Nabaclis, Guyana. At the age of nine, his musical genius apparent, he was invited to serve as a clarinetist in the British Guiana Militia Band. After a brief apprenticeship for stellar young Afro-Guyanese and Portuguese-Guyanese musicians, Dunbar performed with the Band until he was 13 years old. Over the course of his career, he became the first black man to conduct orchestras in England, Germany, Poland, and Russia.

Nineteen-year-old Dunbar left his native Guyana for New York City in 1926 to enroll in the Institute of Musical Art, now called the Juilliard School. While studying at the Institute, he participated in the Harlem Renaissance’s music activities, working with leading composer William Grant Still. While working with other Renaissance musicians, Dunbar also developed as a Jazz musician.

After graduating from the Institute of Musical Art, in 1932 at the age of 24, Dunbar journeyed to Paris, France, where he continued to develop his musical craft as a soloist and arranger. He conducted ensembles and studied music composition and conducting at the University of Paris at the Sorbonne. In 1937, After six years in Paris, Dunbar continued his studies in Germany and Austria. He then moved to London, England to pursue opportunities as a composer and conductor. While in London he became involved in music journalism, writing a weekly column in London’s The Melody Maker. He later opened the Rudolph Dunbar School of Clarinet Playing in London and authored the music textbook, Treatise on Clarinet Playing (1939).

By the 1940s Dunbar was a sought-after composer and conductor. In 1942, he was invited to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra before an audience of 7,000 in the Royal Albert Hall, becoming the first black person to hold that honor. Three years later, while working as a war correspondent for the American 8th Army, he was invited by Berlin Philharmonic musical director Leo Brochard to conduct William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 in A-flat Major, Afro-American for Allied soldiers in Germany. The concert took place in Allied-occupied Germany on April 12 during the final weeks of the Nazi regime. Dunbar also conducted French symphony orchestras in the late 1940s. In 1951, Dunbar was invited back to Guyana to conduct the British Guiana Militia Band. It was a huge celebration as he returned to lead the band that had first recognized his genius.

By 1962, Dunbar has conducted symphony orchestras and string ensembles throughout Europe, including Poland and the Soviet Union, making him the first Black conductor to enjoy this type of notoriety across that continent. In the USSR he led the Leningrad Philharmonic, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, and the Baku Philharmonic in Krasnodar, North Caucasus.

Dunbar was what would now be called Afrocentric in his approach. He always promoted and performed the music of Black composers. He also used his influence to highlight classical music pieces that honored African and Caribbean countries as they evolved from colonial rule to independence in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

W. Rudolph Dunbar died of cancer on June 10, 1988, in his home in London, England. He was 80 years old at the time of his death.

T-Pain, born Faheem Rasheed Najm, is not only a musician but an entrepreneur. Like many of his contemporaries such as Jay-Z, Akon, and Rihanna, he has an interest in multiple businesses. He first got into music as a child when he spent time with a music producer friend.

He would later convert his bedroom into a makeshift music studio. In the early 2000s, he made a grand entry into the music industry with a collaboration with Akon. He later released his debut album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, in late 2005 which became an instant hit globally.

Since then, he has featured major artists such as Chris Brown, Flo Rida, and DJ Khaled as well as winning the Grammys twice with his collaboration with Jamie Foxx and controversial rapper Kanye West.

His success in the music industry brought in quite a lot of money. In his own words, he became wealthy. However, a series of bad spending habits and investment decisions left him with zero dollars in the bank.

In a startling interview recently, the 35-year-old revealed that he had to borrow money from friends to treat his children to a Burger King meal. According to him, he once had $40 million in his account but lost all due to poor investment decisions and spending habits.

“Now I know what the high end is and what the low end is,” he said. “I’ve been mega-rich, I’ve been super broke, right in the middle of thinking I was mega-rich, and then got rich again, and you know learned how to really give a s— about money,” the rapper said in an interview with the radio show “The Breakfast Club.”

T-Pain disclosed that his most expensive purchase, apart from his home, was a $1.2 million Bugatti. That Bugatti, which he even abandoned after five months due to a fault, was the beginning of his financial woes. “At that point, I was running out of money and my accountant was like ‘You just bought a Bugatti. You’re out of money.’ And I was like ‘No, I’m not. I got this house I want to get, this other house for my assistants, my runners, my producers and stuff,’” T-Pain shared.

He said that after buying that house, he just started “going crazy with the money.” 

“I wasn’t paying attention to it. I thought if I didn’t have access to my own accounts that I wouldn’t have to look at it.”

Essentially, T-Pain and his team squandered money on real estate. “I was letting my manager do it and he was way more optimistic than I was,” the rapper said. “He would buy complete dumps and think that we could just paint.”

T-Pain shared that they never sold the properties purchased and things got really bad.

However, “The Masked Singer” singer claimed in the interview that he is currently financially stable, adding that he does not intend to chase after the $40 million. “Once you give as— about the money you’re making, then you feel much better about your accomplishments, you feel much better about what you’re doing, you start paying attention to your work that makes you money,” he said.

In addition, T-Pain said he has learned about sound financial management skills and paying attention to projects he is executing. He added that he has found a way to balance this time between his family and his hustles.

“I’m not chasing the $40 [million],” he said. “The money I’m making now, I’m just making it, I’m not trying to make it. That $40 million, I was hustling, I needed to be on everybody’s record, and every record gotta go No. 1, I gotta do this work. And at that time, I didn’t know my family at all.”

According to him, his proudest moment has been providing for his wife Amber Najm and three kids Lyriq, Muziq and Kaydnz.

“Awards are always great, but in the long run, it doesn’t really say who you are. I’m more concerned about my family, my kids, and my wife and making sure I can provide,” he said.

Professor Shirley Thompson in 2002 became the first woman to compose a symphony in 40 years in Europe. Her ensemble, “New Nation Rising, A 21st Century Symphony” was recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and written in celebration of the thousand-year history of London. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was accompanied by solo singers, a rapper, two choirs, and dhol drummers making a total of about 200 performers

An English composer of Jamaican descent, Thompson first fell in love with composition when she began playing the violin in youth symphony orchestras in London while signing with local choirs as well.

Her “New Nation Rising” composition, which made its debut at the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, had its concept taken as the framework for the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

Thompson is a seasoned composer, educator, artistic director, and conductor whose works have been played and heard the world over. Her pieces have been used for many films, television, theatre, dance, and opera productions.

She pursued her bachelor’s in Musicology at the University of Liverpool and specialized in Composition at Goldsmiths’ College with Professor Stanley Glasser. She is a Reader in Composition and Performance at the University of Westminster and has served on many art councils.

“Visions,” from the Greenwich International Festival, was her first major composition, and then a few more followed. Thompson added writing music for films and television to her resume and that was a success too.

Her composition for the popular series, “South of the Border”, made it to the top 20 theme song list on BBC at the time. She received a prize at the Mannheim Film Festival for her composition for the film “Dreaming Rivers.”

Thompson’s repertoire transcends film and television and seeps into dance. Aside from being commissioned for several royal engagements, she got busy making classic pieces for contemporary choreographers including the Royal Ballet School’s workshops.

“Shift” is her most popular dance score and it featured a solo cello and string orchestra for the award-winning ballet performance “PUSH” which was headlined by seasoned ballet dancers Sylvie Guillem and Russel Maliphnat, not only in England but in over 20 countries that the ballet number toured.

In 1995, she founded and directed The Shirley Thompson Ensemble at the South Bank Center in London. Her diverse group consisted of instrumental soloists, singers, visual artists, and dancers. This group was the foundation of her unique compositions.

Music is her life, and she would not stop until many more are groomed into the industry. With that, she spearheaded many arts education programs including that of the Newham Symphony Schools Spectacular for children from 7 to 17 years of age in 2002. The whole Newham borough ended up adopting the program as part of the national education plan in 2010 under the banner, “Every Child a Musician.”

Thompson’s works span decades and her versatility is admired by many. Be it in theatre, opera, dance, film, or television, Thompson delivers excellent pieces. Heroines of Opera, her work to unearth submerged narratives that feature iconic women in history, has been lauded by many.

She was the first woman to serve as executive of the Association of Professional Composers and is an active member of the Classical Music Executive for the British Academy of Song Writers, Composers, and Authors.

Since 2011 that respected kora player, vocalist and instrumentalist Sona Jobarteh dropped the album Fasiya, the world-renowned musician has not released any other album. Instead, she has been placing all her finances and energies into the Gambia Academy of Music and Culture she opened in her home country, The Gambia, in 2015.

The school is the first of its kind in The Gambia that teaches music and academic studies as an integrated course of study. In other words, the Academy educates children in their cultural traditions and heritage alongside the mainstream curriculum.

“My ambition was to teach children an innate sense of pride in their own culture and history. It became my ambition to make sure I contributed to this change,” said Jobarteh, who is from a long West African tradition of Griots and kora players from Mali and The Gambia.

At just five years old, Jobarteh was already playing the kora, the 21-string instrument which is traditionally reserved for men. Today, she is known as the first professional female kora player in The Gambia, and throughout her performances, she has shown that one does not have to conform to outside influence to be successful in the music industry.

“You can actually represent your tradition, you can even sing in your own language without having to bend to pressure not to do so,” she said.

It is against this background that she founded the Academy dedicated to the social and economic development of the country. To Jobarteh, African children, when given the kind of education her Academy offers, will be motivated to take up roles in building and harnessing the resources of their own countries rather than thinking of leaving their country.

Jobarteh, a scholar in traditional West African Mande music, came to the above realization during her studies at SOAS University in London, CNN reported. “[SOAS] has one of Europe’s largest libraries containing African literature and resources — an absolutely amazing place,” she told CNN. “But why should Africans leave Africa to go and study their own culture? This is something that didn’t sit well with me.”

So with 21 students, Jobarteh started her Academy in a makeshift facility in Farato, a rural town in western Gambia. The number of students has increased to 40, with many being orphans from rural communities who lacked access to education. Jobarteh pays the fees of all the students, using the earnings from her international touring and album sales.

With more students hoping to join the Academy, it is now expanding to Kartong in southwestern Gambia. Jobarteh purchased 50 hectares of land in Kartong in 2017 toward the construction of a new campus that will support about 300 students as well as the Academy’s Senior department for those above 18 years old.

The Academy campus, which hopes to become a “centralized hub for African cultural and academic excellence”, will offer courses including general and specialist musical education to both national and international students, all of whom will benefit from on-site accommodation. The new campus comes with facilities such as a dance studio, a concert hall, recording studio, a library, screening room and a multi-media suite, according to its website.

Sustainable, locally sourced materials will be used for the project but what really excites Jobarteh is the location of the campus. The Academy campus is not only a ten-minute walk to the beach but also closely connected to the rural community, giving Jobarteh and her team “a bright, natural setting that blends African tradition, arts and culture with academia.”

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Jobarteh is currently seeking external funding in order to complete the pioneering institution.

Not earlier than 2019, there were some within and outside that country who held doubts about the potential for a former musician to cause trouble to Yoweri Kaguta Museveni‘s seemingly eternal reign as president of Uganda.

The skepticism was founded not so much in the readiness and efficiency of the iron-strong antagonism Museveni has reserved for his critics and opposition challengers. Rather, they doubted Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu – his understanding of the political climate, his ideology, his discipline and his ability to remain steadfast.

We may not yet say those people have been proven wrong. When Uganda’s election authority announces the final results, Museveni does look like the man who will carry the January 14 poll with a strong majority of votes. Kyagulanyi, or Bobi Wine as he has been known throughout much of his public life, will allege irregularities bordering on criminality. He may even declare that he won the vote.

But somehow, the finality of this process is not the most important aspect. I aim to convince that the lesson to pick up here is the way Museveni has undeniably been rattled by a man who shouldn’t have come this far, per his obstacles of public relations in addition to the deathly hostility with which he has been met.

Bobi Wine had no business leading this movement against Museveni. In his own words, Wine comes “from the ghetto”, where the poor have carried the brunt of Museveni’s failures. He grew up in a slum in northwestern Kampala, counting on his love of music as the ticket to sail out of where nothing good really comes.

What has become of the man who escaped on the ticket of music is that he stands toe-to-toe, fearlessly against one of Africa’s more determined strongmen. To say he had no right to come this far is to put Bobi Wine in comparison with Museveni’s last two competitors: Dr. Kizza Besigye, Museveni’s friend-turned-foe who was once his personal doctor, and Dr. Paul Ssemogerere, an astute academic. Either man, but particularly Dr. Besigye, offered the promise of rebirth that Museveni had began to renege on circa 2006.

Dr. Besigye, in his own right, was a courageous politician. Anyone who comes up against a strongman is. His unpopular support for gay rights in Uganda, something we cannot say for Bobi Wine, would continue to be a feather in his cap in the eyes of a considerable lot of his compatriots. Consequently, he laid the grounds for future opposition to Museveni but he was surprisingly not quite an embodiment of the protest against the authoritarian tendencies of Museveni.

One would have to remember that Museveni vs Besigye was one of the longest presidential election battles in postcolonial Africa. In 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016, the physician unsuccessfully tried to wrestle power from the former guerilla leader. That antagonism was symptomatic of Ugandan politics. For Bobi Wine to overtake Dr. Besigye in under four years, begs a lot of explanations, one of which is the fact that we witness the pulling ahead of a comet with the momentum.

The average age in Uganda is under 20 in a country of more than 44 million people. According to a piece published by The Guardian, about 80% of Ugandans were born around or after Museveni first came into power in 1986. Bobi Wine himself was only just 4 when Museveni claimed his coming marked a “fundamental change” in Uganda’s history and sets the country toward the path of “democratic government”. He was believed then as Wine is now.

It was evident for about two years that Wine commanded massive support among Uganda’s young. He had remade himself in the image of the aspirational revolutionary, a far cry from the reggae and pop musician who threw shots at politicians and volunteered political suggestions in hit tunes. And you would like to see that, would you not? That your aspiring politician transcends the hedonism and debauchery popstars are known for. You could tell Wine had grown into this new skin when he questioned Museveni’s education credentials.

All this has been done by Wine with a fair bit of grip on the everydayness of Ugandan life, touting the life of the ordinary people as his inspiration for politics. He is the man of all the people, yesterday’s Museveni in action today. That is remarkably unlike Dr. Besigye or Dr. Ssemogerere. And maybe, more than anyone on the face of this earth, Museveni sees this – that this one is different.

The good doctor did not have young people adopting fashion styles to make anti-establishment political statements. Before you underestimate the relevance of this, you have to know that Museveni’s government did not; they tried to ban the signature red berets members of the National Unity Platform (NUP) wore. It is fair to understand that adopting a fashion style to signify your politics and annoy power plays out on a critical plane of human self-expression.

Wine’s fiery speeches against Museveni were a mark of his campaign in 2017 when he vied for the Kyandodo East parliamentary seat in a by-election. They have continued and indeed, turned up a few notches with every bullet fired at him and his supporters and with every life lost in his campaign. In November after he filed forms to contest in the presidential election, 54 people were killed in clashes between his supporters and the police. That is more lives lost than in the entirety of the 2016 electioneering process.

Museveni is anything but an idiot. In the last few years, observers of the African political scene like myself have had to concede that the 76-year-old makes the closest to a formidable argument for serial power-wielders. They are not to be booted out simply because one thinks their time is up or that they are old. The fragility of the African democratic process and its evolution means that life and living shall not easily be trusted to the devices of teething institutions. Strong fixtures, i.e. benevolent strongmen, are necessary while democracy is young.

I understand it is aberrant to argue that while democracy crawls, benevolent strongmen are useful. In fact, in his case, Museveni has spent 34 years not creating and empowering the institutions that can guarantee Uganda’s democracy. He is rather devolved into a paternalistic and condescending bully unrecognizable from the revolutionary of the 80s and 90s.

Far be it from me to hold the citations of honor given by America as a sort of scale but in 1997, Magdalene Albright called Museveni a “beacon of hope” in a “uni-party democracy” in Africa. The solution to the Ugandan AIDS crisis and the relative stability enjoyed by the country is chiefly due to Museveni’s governance. But somewhere along the line, the plot was lost and the light gave way to soul-shattering bleakness.

“Why did such a prized revolutionary decide to become one of the world’s most despised dictators?,” Bobi Wine asked himself in an interview with the BBC in 2019. “Only the idea of building strong institutions that can save us from ourselves.”

Before these institutions will be built, from scratch or in continuance, the old has to give way to the new spirit. Museveni will survive today’s battle but the future has been previewed and he knows it. It is incumbent upon him, and only him – as the most important politician in that country – to begin to make plans for his exit. Having seen what the young think of him, it would be most irresponsible if he plans to sink his claws in further like his late friend Robert Mugabe did.

The year 2020 has been eventful, particularly in the Black community. The coronavirus pandemic disproportionately affected African Americans than any other group. According to a CBS news report in June, 40% of Black businesses closed permanently because of the contagion compared to 17% of White-owned businesses.

Black unemployment reached 14.6% compared to 9.2% of White people in June while the National Urban League also reported Blacks were three times likely to be infected with COVID-19 than whites. Beyond COVID-19, there were multiple protests in Black communities against the brute killing of unarmed Black men by the police.

To capture how eventful the year has been, Google tapped music producer and Grammy Award artiste Peter CottonTale to compose a song that describes the past year for its Year of Search.

The Year of Search typically aggregates moments and top search for the past year based on words and/ or questions people ask frequently in Google’s search engine. Top of the trends this year include Juneteenth, Black Lives Matter, and murder hornets.

“Trying to make a sound that culminates 2020 … was honestly way too sad,” CottonTale told Insider. “Because for a lot of people [the year 2020] sounded like loss, or it sounded like a lot of challenges in their personal lives.”

For this project, CottonTale co-opted 80 Black artists, engineers, producers, and managers to create the song “Together” for Google. Actress Cynthia Erivo, Chance the Rapper and the Chicago Children’s Choir featured on the song.

“All the stars aligned on this collaboration with Peter CottonTale,” Google’s Head of Production Patrick Marzullo told Insider. “The tone and story he wanted to tell through music aligned perfectly with our vision for the film, so from there it was easy to give him the time and space to do what he does best.”

Instead of composing a song that sounded like a loss or full of challenges, CottonTale decided to create a song that had a more optimistic view of how 2021 is going to be like. “Together” recognizes 2020’s difficulties, challenges and the need for communities to unite as one.

As part of the project, Google has promised to donate $15,000 to the Merit School of Music and $ 35,000 to Chicago Children’s Choir. Google had never featured a song on its homepage before until this December 23. “Together” also featured in Google’s “Year in Search 2020” video.

CottonTale appreciates the fact that he is part of a “first” with Google. He said in an interview: “It’s an honor being on the front page, but I’m so happy that this message can be delivered like across the board and have Black-led faces as well, and that Google is amazingly supportive in putting us on the forefront of that. That’s what I think it became about.”

“Together” landed on Google’s homepage December 23.

Since 2011 that respected kora player, vocalist and instrumentalist Sona Jobarteh dropped the album Fasiya, the world-renowned musician has not released any other album. Instead, she has been placing all her finances and energies into the Gambia Academy of Music and Culture she opened in her home country, The Gambia, in 2015.

The school is the first of its kind in The Gambia that teaches music and academic studies as an integrated course of study. In other words, the Academy educates children in their cultural traditions and heritage alongside the mainstream curriculum.

“My ambition was to teach children an innate sense of pride in their own culture and history. It became my ambition to make sure I contributed to this change,” said Jobarteh, who is from a long West African tradition of Griots and kora players from Mali and The Gambia.

At just five years old, Jobarteh was already playing the kora, the 21-string instrument which is traditionally reserved for men. Today, she is known as the first professional female kora player in The Gambia, and throughout her performances, she has shown that one does not have to conform to outside influence to be successful in the music industry.

“You can actually represent your tradition, you can even sing in your own language without having to bend to pressure not to do so,” she said.

It is against this background that she founded the Academy dedicated to the social and economic development of the country. To Jobarteh, African children, when given the kind of education her Academy offers, will be motivated to take up roles in building and harnessing the resources of their own countries rather than thinking of leaving their country.

Jobarteh, a scholar in traditional West African Mande music, came to the above realization during her studies at SOAS University in London, CNN reported. “[SOAS] has one of Europe’s largest libraries containing African literature and resources — an absolutely amazing place,” she told CNN. “But why should Africans leave Africa to go and study their own culture? This is something that didn’t sit well with me.”

So with 21 students, Jobarteh started her Academy in a makeshift facility in Farato, a rural town in western Gambia. The number of students has increased to 40, with many being orphans from rural communities who lacked access to education. Jobarteh pays the fees of all the students, using the earnings from her international touring and album sales.

With more students hoping to join the Academy, it is now expanding to Kartong in southwestern Gambia. Jobarteh purchased 50 hectares of land in Kartong in 2017 toward the construction of a new campus that will support about 300 students as well as the Academy’s Senior department for those above 18 years old.

The Academy campus, which hopes to become a “centralized hub for African cultural and academic excellence”, will offer courses including general and specialist musical education to both national and international students, all of whom will benefit from on-site accommodation. The new campus comes with facilities such as a dance studio, a concert hall, recording studio, a library, screening room and a multi-media suite, according to its website.

Sustainable, locally sourced materials will be used for the project but what really excites Jobarteh is the location of the campus. The Academy campus is not only a ten-minute walk to the beach but also closely connected to the rural community, giving Jobarteh and her team “a bright, natural setting that blends African tradition, arts and culture with academia.”

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Jobarteh is currently seeking external funding in order to complete the pioneering institution.

Malian singer Salif Keita has announced his entry into politics as a member of the West African country’s transitional council which will play a major role in the transition to civilian rule. The 121-member transitional council is expected to be in place for 18 months and will vote on legislative reforms and other changes before elections are organized.

Keita will be on the council alongside members of the military junta, former militants and members of civil society. The council, at its inaugural meeting on Saturday, approved as its president Colonel Malick Diaw, one of the army officers behind the August coup which overthrew President Ibrahim Boubakar Keïta. President Keita won a second term in elections in 2018 but the opposition accused him of collapsing the country’s economy and worsening the security situation in the country.

Diaw now becomes the third military figure appointed to hold major government positions following the overthrow of President Keita. Former Defence Minister Bah Ndaw currently leads the country while junta leader Col Assimi Goita is the interim vice-president amid concerns over what the opposition calls the militarization of affairs of the country.

“This is a decisive time for Mali,” multiple Grammy-nominated singer Keita told Bloomberg. “It’s very important that we correct the mistakes that have been made in the past.”

Keita is a record-making millionaire, award-winning soulful Afropop singer with global repute. Born into Mandinka culture which sees albinism as a curse or bad luck, he has been singing to highlight the plight of those with albinism across Africa. Growing up in the Malian capital, he joined the government-funded music band, Super Rail Band de Bamako.

At the beginning of the 1970s, he became the lead singer for the group that played Afro-Latin sounds. It was the group Les Ambassadeurs, which Keita joined in 1973, that offered him the platform for international recognition. The group would later flee Mali and settle in Ivory Coast due to political unrest. In 1984, Keita moved to Paris. In 2019, he announced that he was returning home to his country.

He had the year prior to that retired from recording and had begun speaking strongly against political tension in his country. “It’s hard to be a good person when you are corrupt, and our politicians are always corrupt,” Keita, known as the “golden voice of Africa”, was quoted by The Guardian in February 2019. “Mali is the most corrupt country in the world after Cameroon.

“Democracy is not a good thing for Africa. We were all happy to see democracy come to Africa, but it destroyed the human sensibility. To have a democracy, people have to understand democracy, and how can people understand when 85% of the people in the country cannot read or write? They need a benevolent dictator like China has; someone who loves his country and acts for his country.”

A Brooklyn 7th grader, Grace Moore, has become one of the youngest composers to create original music for the famous symphony orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. The orchestra performed the piece on the streets of New York last month.

Moore composed the piece for the orchestra as part of efforts by the music group to introduce original composing to a broader spectrum of people including children.

The 12-year-old is part of the Very Young Composers program, an initiative by the New York Philharmonic which teaches children as little as age eight how to create music. Moore is very excited for the opportunity to create music for the esteemed symphony orchestra.

She said she has not seen many people like her composing for the orchestra. “I haven’t really seen many people who look like me on stage,” she told CBS News.  It’s her hope that her achievement will bring aboard more people of color into this genre of music.

“She was very excited about the fact that she could represent as a Black female composer and also such a young person,”, Clara Stewart Moore, her mother added. 

According to Philharmonic President Deborah Borda, the Very Young Performers program is an initiative to expose as many new people as possible to classical music irrespective of their age, class or color.

Times have changed and many institutions have had to adjust their modus operandi which includes the New York Philharmonic. The coronavirus health and safety measures have prevented the group from performing inside the Lincoln Center.

To keep the music alive, the Philharmonic’s “Bandwagon Series” was introduced so musicians and opera singers get to perform from pick up trucks.

Moore’s debut performance with the orchestra was in October near the Brooklyn Bridge and in front of Lincoln Center. Not only did they play her music, but she also directed the group from start to finish.  

“Music is universal,” Moore said. “It doesn’t matter where you are or where you’re from or what language you speak. Everyone can understand it.”

A lot of New Yorkers were able to enjoy the performances from their balconies and Moore had the opportunity of a lifetime to share her talent with the world regardless of the new normal imposed by the pandemic.