Catherine's Profile

Catherine (aka Africathy)'s Profile
Who should I blame it all on? In my case, not the boogie, but the reggae, and all the other Black music my dad was listening to when I was an impressionable child and teenager in East Germany. By then I had also discovered my love of dance in all its intriguing shapes and incarnations, both as a stunned observer and using it as a means to, quite literally, move myself.

Lo and behold, waiting just round the corner was the perfect way to channel all that energy and need for expression. My home town had its fair share of African and other international students (remember socialism and international solidarity? – well, at least on paper!), and they knew how to throw a fantastic party, something I found out at the tender age of 17 when I ended up dancing to Zaiko Langa Langa, Franco, Papa Noël and Tabu Ley till 8 in the morning without a single drop of alcohol to fuel my happy mood! Cf. Rumba John for a spot-on eulogy on Congolese music and dance.

This was also the time my collection of African (and other supposedly ‘obscure’ species of) music got going, long before the so-called World Music phenomenon struck. Hunting and gathering is the nature of the music lover, and so I progressed from the often battered and worn-out tapes friends and lovers kindly left behind to raids on various specialist and not so specialised music shops wherever I go – There is something of interest to be found even in the most mainstream or unlikely place, all you need to do is look. Haunted by a bouncy South African Zulu jive by the Mahotella Queens, heard in the late 80s on a popular East German African music radio show (indeed!), I spent six years searching for a copy and finally happened on it by chance on the Seven Sisters Road. Likewise, some vintage Fela Kuti afrobeat finally yielded itself up to my pursuit in Virgin Records – Beirut branch!

Concerts have been a vital part of my African and world-wide music initiation and education (live and learn!), memorable performances by Oumou Sangare, Ali Farka Toure, Orchestra Baobab, Femi Kuti, Sam Mangwana, Oliver Mtukudzi, Salif Keita and many, many others spring to mind.

While working at Hull University in the mid-90s I came across two guys with a £5,000 lottery grant for putting on live African music in the city, I got involved and we ended up having great fun dancing to the infectious rhythms of Abdul Tee-Jay’s Rokoto, the sweet, sweet guitar pickings of Mr Mose Fan Fan in his then incarnation of Somo Somo Ngobilo, Madagascan melodians and speed-beat wizards Tarika, Ifang Bondi flown in (almost especially) from the Gambia, and Cuban band Sierra Maestra, not to mention the Sterns Music “house band”, Species. Somebody had to play the DJ sets in between, and so my hitherto private African CD collection got its first proper airing.

The rest is history, and when I moved to Cambridge five years ago, I soon found the Devonshire Arms and its – ever-growing – posse of African and tropical music lovers. I joined Club Africa, as it was then known, and have played at lots of events since then: Café Afrika at CC’s, CU events at Mill Lane, the Junction, private parties and weddings. Knowing that you can move people across boundaries – spiritual, mental, geographical and physical – has got to be one of the greatest pleasures ever. Knowing that I’ll never have the skills or creativity to actually make the kind of beautiful and gripping music that makes you go Mmmmmmh! I feel that the next best thing, and something in its own right, is to play it to you and wait for the big beats and soaring melodies, the catchy rhythms and soulful harmonies, for the grooves ancient and modern to filter through to your hearts and minds and souls and hips and feet. Smile, you’ve been caught in the African music trap! You can have a look at my favourite tunes here. I am also happy to DJ at other venues or private parties.

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