Music session: Oumoukala, by Okro Fam

As part of the opening for the exhibition Otobong Nkanga. Craving for Southern Light, we will be presenting a music session by Oumoukala.

Oumoukala is a researcher, promotor of Okro, DJ, model and anthropologist born in Mauritania.

Her principal concerns revolve around music and sound as elements of identity and memory-related narrative. Enjoyment in the use and combination of these elements is fundamental in her work.

Okro is a liquid festive space. Our ultimate aim is to be a reference for a festive lifestyle and culture for people not represented in current club culture, and secondly to be a laboratory of diasporan African sounds in the creative arena. We try to create inclusive events focusing on revolutionary enjoyment for bodies not normally situated in the centre of society.

Okra, quimbombó or okro is a vegetable found in many African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Angola and others). Okra was taken to continents such as America by African slaves. For many years in countries like the United State, it was considered a food for the lower classes. It’s a vegetable that unites and celebrates Africa and the African diaspora in the north of the world. This gives the space its name and main vision: using African electronic music as a means to unite and resist through pleasure, celebration and the collective creation of black bodies.