I live here.
That means
I belong here.
So everything I do
has to be for here
and for the people of Galway City
Wally Nkikita
artwork by
Elton Sibanda
Listen to
the Music
Listen to the Memory
As usual, most of our events has a name on it. So, when we do an African night of music, we have to give it a name so it can have a feeling on it. So, this one, we called it, Woza Afrika.
The music took place at Áras na nGael pub in the middle of Galway City Centre. Áras na nGael pub is just a pub with no decoration on it. So, we have to decorate the place with African posters and banners to make the pub, the feels and smells of Africa.
On that night, we had DJ Theo from the great Western Hostel, Direct Provision, and DJ Wally and DJ Phil One performing on the night. As, with our sound system Funktion-one.
Woza Afrika is from Ndebele dialect of Zimbabwe, meaning Come Africa.
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We use... So it's so powerful and it gives us really the right Afrobeat sound, which we really like. We like it to have as a usual, but we started, from 9:00 PM as usual to 2:00 AM.
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But around in the morning at 2:00 AM when we finished, the crowd wanted more and more and more. The presence of the local community, with the Galway African diaspora on the night, gave us really a sense of belonging in this City of Culture.
It was so emotional that the night was enjoyable to all who took part. As performers and crowds, we really feel that we need more of that, so together we can do more. What we do really in Galway city, promoting African culture with our event is really helping the local community to understand what is the difference between Irish music and African music, because some of people will come and ask you that, "We never heard of that kind of music before, but where is it from?"
And you have to explain to them that the music is in an African beat. So we are there to promote it in that city, so we can let people know that there are Africans living in Galway city too.
As a performer myself, as a DJ, I feel like doing what I do is really uplifting me and telling me that I have to go and go and do more as I live here. That means I belong here. So everything I do has to be for here and for the people of Galway City.
Galway city is so supportive about the nights of our Afro music nights.
As a cosmopolitan city, we do have many nationality, European and African in the city who always participate and follow us through our social media to know when will we have another gig or when are we going to perform and they will be coming and join us and have fun together
So that's why, as we say, in our motto, “together we can do more”.
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