Mwezi Waq – Le Blues Des Sourds-Muets – Deaf And Dumb Blues

The music of Mwezi WaQ. is anchored in an era that denies, in an unashamedly regressive way, the stories of how the majority have suffered. Those who have been rejected, forgotten, sacrificed. Those who are rather contemptuously dismissed as the little people — the majority — all the better to confirm them in their social tragedies. Coming from a country where music has long been the repository of popular memory, Mwezi WaQ. has chosen to take up a tradition, initiated by the elders, of raw words. The elders of yesterday and today. A rhythmic speech, anchored in the daily life and language of the people, under its rustic and rough exterior. A poetic speech, full of shinduwantsi, in the image of a word fractured by restraint or exile.
Shinduwantsi — the word literally brings us back to the Comorian idea of digging in the earth to extract the juice of life in a joust of words and sounds. A way of embodying the poem in all its complexity, by amplifying its relationship with reality. Mwezi WaQ. identifies with a world where humanity is synonymous, first and foremost, with sharing and hope. One is not born human, one becomes human by contributing to the common destiny. A necessity in the face of the adversity of an era where the deaf and dumb become elements paraded in broad daylight. Mwezi WaQ. is a quest for meaning in a glass half full of dry truths. A Comorian grandfather once murmured to his youngest daughter: “Always see yourself in the gaze of oblivion, so as not to drown in the ocean of silent horrors.” A means for Mwezi WaQ. to think about music and its “why".

Track Listing:
1. Ya ngaya – 4:48   2. Mwana djini - 5:15   3. Ankipwa - 5:00   4. Komoro - 3:22   5. Kondro - 5:41   6. Maji ya limbi mtsanga - 3:59   7. Mavuza landa -  4:31   8. Heywa djuwu dja nyora - 6:01   9. Si wadje - 4:14   10. Undroni blues - 7:33   11. Sariko - 5:05   12. Mkolo - 4:01   13. Ngayo ha ngayo - 4:36   14. Hale - 2:32   15. Radio Mix - 4:38

Personnel:
Soeuf Elbadawi (vocals) , Valérie Belinga (backing vocals) , Ben (guitar) , Cédric Baud (saz & soprano guitar) , Fabrice Thompson (drums & percussion) , . Frederic Brissaud (on saxophone) , Mangane Ousseynou (balafon) , Guitar Fouad Ahamada Tadjiri (guitar)