Mbongwana Star, Pat Thomas and Ifa Band to headline Africa Oyé in UK

Up-and-coming Tanzanian rumba group, Ifa Band, DR Congo’s genre-bending Mbongwana Star and Ghanaian highlife legend Pat Thomas and Kwashibu Area Band are the first three acts announced to perform at the popular festival.

Ifa Band, with their close harmonies and disheveled elegance, blend rumba and Bongo Flava with muziki wa dansi in a fresh and exciting fashion. Founded by blind guitarist Jafari Rashid Igomba, the hard-working group have gone from busking their away across Tanzania to now playing at the UK's largest free festival of African music and culture. They will surely make their set one to remember.

Mbongwana Star includes former members of popular Congolese band Staff Benda Bilili. Shedding any preconceptions of African music that an audience may have, they perform a mix of electro-rock, soukous and everything in between.

Hailed as 'the Golden Voice of Africa', Pat Thomas's music updates the sounds of highlife and Afrobeat that arose during the 1970s in West Africa. He will perform at Oyé in conjunction with the Kwashibu Area Band, led by multi-instrumentalist Kwame Yeboah and saxophonist Ben Abarbanel-Wolff. The performance follows their first international release in 2015.

 

Now in its 24th year, Africa Oyé attracted record crowds of around 80 000 last year to the free, two-day, family-friendly event. Kenyan Band Sarabi were among the artists that performed at the 2015 festival.

The festival's artistic director, Paul Duhaney, said of this year’s selection: "We had a record amount of applications to play the festival this year and it was a real challenge to whittle it down to the final line-up. These three are just the beginning of an exciting 2016 programme and I can't wait to reveal the rest!" 

In addition to the famous festival, Africa Oyé aims to educate children and adults alike in England's North West on the vibrancy of the world's different cultures to promote a spirit of multiculturalism and tolerance. Malagasy musician Haja, of acclaimed band HAJAmadagascar & The Groovy People, took local schoolkids on ‘a journey to Madagascar’ using music and dance as a form of education. Haja toured schools in the region between 22 February and 4 March getting children from across Merseyside involved in dancing, singing and learning about his home country. Duhaney said of Haya's teaching: "He's got an enthusiasm that resonates with the kids and his workshops are loads of fun while still being genuinely educational."   More acts will be revealed in due course. For more information visit the Africa Oyé website or watch the video below for highlights of last year's festival.