Last month, I talked with a well known producer and visual artist Obeka. Born and raised on the island of Bermuda, The Me Gusta Co-founder has dedicated their musical career to shining light on Caribbean, Pan-African, and UK sound culture.

The main topic of our conversation was his upcoming project ‘Drums of Utopia’. The collaborative project with five artists incorporates the sounds of their home countries and environments into a mini album releasing on the 27th April. Funded by Manchester International Festival (MIF), Obeka has unified a range of pan-african sounds into this collaborative project, with Mexico’s Ultima Esuna based in Montreal, South Africa‘s Mxshi Mo, Sweden's Bobo, and Brazilian-Amazon native Kid From Amazon. As the title of the project hints towards,

‘Drums of utopia’ intersects African and Latin drum music with 5 artists in this collaborative project. it unifies the sounds of these artists' environments and uses it as a tool to connect with, not only your own, other soundsystem cultures.

‘Music is positive, progressive, unifying, and communicates this. It’s happy’ Obeka tells me, as we met in Bold Street Coffee to talk about this project and his creative pursuits. A lot of the music we consume is dictated by our environments, in their own bubbles with little room to fully experience them. Obeka doesn’t want to burst them, he wants them to intersect and Drums of Utopia certainly remedies that. He aspires to expose both the heritage and artistic expression from people of colour and its communities. One of the artists involved in the project, Kid From Amazon, born in Belém do Pará, Brazil, uses the Amazon rainforest as the reference point for their song ‘Tenho Me Sentido Assim’. “The song is a dive into a percussive, pulsating paradisiacal subconscious. It is a visit to eternal moments in the past fused with knowledge acquired over time. And also a sweet and unpredictable Carimbó infusion alarming your afternoon nap for the incoming festivities sounding off in the Brazilian streets.”

Obeka has used his approach to music, and life, in this project. A lot of his own qualities are reflected in it too, I could sense Jay’s enthusiasm for elevating others in all creative scenes was palpable, even offering me extensive advice on how to apply for funding through grants for Dance Policy. We even went off topic and talked about how to measure success without money and following, and yet operate in a scene that is purely measured by this. I could tell this was just the type of person Obeka is (even though I had come to interview him and talk about the new project). He didn’t seem interested in showing me his ‘trophies’, only learning and connecting with others.

This connection is mirrored with one of the artists, Ultima Esuna, who described their work in Mexico for Dance Policy, “In some popular neighborhoods and colonies, clandestine dances are held where people of different ages, including youth, adults, chavos banda, and members of rival gangs, come together and forget their differences with the shout of "wepa". This shout becomes a symbol of unity and celebration. The music project, featuring the artist's vocals screaming "wepa" with intense joy and accompanied by ancient flutes, effectively captures the essence of a common greeting by the artist's hometown in Veracruz, Mexico, inspiring the project to encapsulate the exuberance of dance in the region”

The remaining artists of this collaborative piece told Dance Policy about their work. Bobo, based in Sweden, wanted to “make ethereal pieces and I believe our collaborations have a bit of both your club ready impact but also a sense of depth and longing. What I find interesting with pieces like this and something I’m dwelling further down into is the idea of music as an environment, a sort of a placeholder for time”. Whereas Mxshi Mo wanted to create “a unique sound that fuses Afro music with experimental electronic elements from Tech house and EDM. My aim with this project was to capture the energy of doomsday, as if the machines have arrived, and express it through the intensity and urgency of the music.

But in all, this project reflects Obeka’s ability to maintain creative relationships and the threads of creativity in each person. These are threads that Obeka has been pulling for awhile, as the project was originally conceptualised in lockdown, and only recently came into fruition because of MIF funding. This is the one thing Jay has missed about his collaborative project, the influence of the Manchester environment into his music which I believe ultimately led to it’s creation. Manchester has been a cultural hub for music since the 80s, and there is no doubt the city inspired the collaborative effort behind the mini-album.

I’d encourage you to check out each artist involved in this project who have given so much of themselves towards it. Listen to Drums of Utopia here

Obeka's 'Drums of Utopia' collaborative project