THE Bello Roots Collective, born in Bellingen, by Bellingen locals, is launching its inaugural First Nations music festival in its hometown, featuring a world music line-up.

Hosted at Bellingen Showgrounds, Bello Roots Festival is on Saturday 14 May.

“The concept is a family friendly, cultural, world music event that will have people dancing and connecting to culture at the same time,” Bellingen’s Alex Richardson, Bello Roots Festival’s Artistic Director told News Of The Area.

“Some of the musical acts are sharing thousands of years old lineages and traditions from their cultural roots – it will be unforgettable and nothing like anything anyone has ever seen before.”

The line-up has been carefully curated to both create an atmosphere that entertains but also shares deep cultural roots with the audience.

Julian Belbachir, who has spent a lot of time in Bellingen and is familiar with and to the locals, is bringing a unique fusion of intertribal African music with an eight-piece band and the launch of his debut album, ‘Babdoukkala’, live to stage.

Bello Roots celebrates First Nation music from Morocco and folkloric masters of their instruments from Mali and Guinea.

“Digital Afrika’s Moroccan roots music fused with electronic beats share traditional Gnaoua and other cultural roots music from North Africa to a vibrant dancefloor.

“Guitar virtuoso Chris Tamwoy and percussive guitarist and singer-songwriter Kauri Munro-Greentree bring their First Nation roots to the festival, sharing their ability to absolutely capture an audience with storytelling to take them on a spiritual journey.

“More acts bring music from Jamaica, East Asia and further regions from around the world.”

Preceding Digital Afrika will be the almighty The 4’20’ Sound featuring Empress Katia, a reggae and dancehall music outfit that is regarded as one of the most influential reggae music collectives in the southern hemisphere.

Committed to bringing back live and world music to Bellingen, Bello Roots is an exciting opportunity for Bellingen to once again host some of the best world music on offer in this country.

“The musicians are super excited to get onto stage, some of whom only had two shows last year,” said Alex.

“The music industry has been one of the worst hit by Covid.

“We hear various success stories of people that have created music during lockdowns or pivoted to online but the touring musicians, even more than the festivals who received lifelines from the government, have had countless shows cancelled, tours fall over and in the wake of all this there have been several attempts to restart only to have gigs cancelled at the last minute as things try to get up and running.

“The reality is grim – I have several friends who have moved into friends-of-family’s houses to survive.

“I myself housed several creatives over the pandemic.”

For further information see www.belloroots.com.au/.

 

By Andrea FERRARI