A few words about your artistic journey

Associate artist at Kabako Studios, collaborates in several projects. I recently signed with Faustin Linyekula, soundtrack and video of his performance "My Body, my Archives" at the Tate Modern Museum ; music and video of "Entre-Deux : Testament" by Dorine Mokha, with whom I co-direct the Art’gument project.

How long have you been an artist ?

From the first professional contract, it’s been 13 years. But I’ve been working in rap music for more than 20 years.

Why did you apply for this grant ? How will the grant support you ?

Because I needed the financial support to concretize this creation that I started to think about in the middle of this crisis. This grant will help me to pay mainly a few fees and per diem during the time of the residency.

What are your concrete artistic objectives after this residency ?

Produce this work to open a space for sharing with the other invited artists ;
Find broadcasting space so that it can be seen and heard by a large audience.

What did you achieve during this creative residency ? What is the result (created work) ? Who was involved in the creation process ?

We were able to do a few additional shoots to enrich what we had from the start : a few recordings. Then we did all the post-production work.

At this stage, we have a work that satisfies us well, that conveys what we wanted and that reflects our feelings and our thoughts in the face of all this.

This process involved, in addition to myself, an author from Lubumbashi who revisited certain texts (Dorine Mokha) ; a team of 3 young people in training at Kabako/Kisangani Studios including : a production assistant (Chimène Baofa), a cameraman (Antoine Mawazo), an editor (Dorcas Mulamba) ; Jeef Mongema, Nipcian Nkolobise and Gaylor Mosi who are the people who lived the experience with me and who share their testimonies in the video.

How do you think these activities contribute to a reflection on today’s world, in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, and/or on the shaping of the future ?

Already the fact of being in the narrative or in the testimony of lived things puts a basis for reflection on a vision that one can have of the world in a general way. By bringing people together to develop work, the creative space necessarily becomes a framework where a new way of exchanging on how we project ourselves each day towards tomorrow comes to life.

How did you feel during the residency ? And at the end of it ?

This residency was a moment of questioning about what I really wanted to share as a reflection through this work. For there were moments of doubt about the choice (declaration of love) in relation to other revelations that I discovered in discussions with the characters. There was this strong desire to react rather violently. But in the end it passed me by, we stuck to the initial intention.
Our work is not necessarily as we had imagined it. But we are satisfied with it, we are very happy with what we ended up with.
We knew much more power cuts than before, we were struck by malaria for a while.