SOUNDTRACK: VOX SAMBOU-GlobalFEST Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #135/151 (January 13, 2021).
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world.
Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.
The first band on the third night is Vox Sambou a Haitian band recording in Montreal.
There are few performers as “alive” as Vox Sambou, whose energy and soul transcends the virtual space. He starts his performance at Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST with a short moment between himself and his son, overseen by a painting of his mother, highlighting the ways we pass down traditions from generation to generation. Based in Montreal, Quebec, Vox Sambou writes and performs in Hatian-Creole, French, English, Spanish and Portuguese. His music is a joyous fusion of Haitian funk, reggae and hip-hop.
He starts with a call and response with his adorable son. Then the music starts and doesn’t let up There’s intense trumpet, lots of percussion and some fantastic dancing from he co-singer. He introduces everyone, but between his accent and their very French names, I couldn’t pick out a single one.
“African Diaspora” has fast intense and fun rapping and singing in French. The joyousness of the music is infectious, and i love watching everyone dance.
“My Rhythm” is slower with a pronounced beat. It’s great watching them all move in synch to that rhythm. The song pauses for a few seconds until another dancer comes out. There’s a ripping trumpet solo followed by a cool sax solo with all three up front dancing. There’s even a brief time to show off the conga players.
“Everyone” ends the set fast and intense. So much drumming, so many horns. It’s pretty wonderful.
These guys must be exhausted!
[READ: December 16, 2020] Something to Live For
S. read this book last year when it was called How Not to Die Alone. In her post about it, she comments about what a great title it was. I agree with that and am not sure why they changed it to the more generic Something to Live For. Although it was the cover/title that grabbed me when I saw it at work, so I guess this new title is good to. But I think the Die title is better.
Compared to some of the more complicated stories that I’ve been reading lately–where I feel like a lot of background information needs to be filled in–this story was delightfully straightforward. It was an enjoyably fast-paced read and resonated in a surprisingly powerful way.
Andrew is a middle aged British man. He had worked in a public service role for many years until his position was terminated. His boss helped him find a new job in the public service field.
This new job is absolutely fascinating to me and I have to wonder if we have such a job in the States. Andrew’s job is to go to the house of a recently deceased person. These are people who died alone and apparently have no contacts. Andrew’s job is to determine if the deceased has someone to contact to come to (and pay for) the funeral or if the deceased has enough money in their apartment to pay for the funeral themselves.
On a regular basis, he has to don protective gear (at the very least a mask with aftershave it in to disguise the smell) and go into a place where a person died. Some houses are disconcertingly pristine–as if the person spent their last days tidying for their final journey. But most places are filthy–food and worse rotting in the room.
Andrew takes his job seriously and he feels it is his last gift to the deceased to go to the funeral of every person whose place he has entered. Most of the time he is the only one there.
Andrew’s office is small. He works with Keith and Meredith, rather unpleasant and smug people who might be having an affair. There’s also his boss Cameron, who wants his employees to be a family. He has had many different ideas about getting the folks to bond. His latest idea is to have a dinner at each person’s house every couple of weeks. He thinks it will be fun for everyone to meet the family members of every employee.
This sounds dreadful on its own. But Andrew has a special reason for being afraid of this.
When he applied for the job, he assumed he’d blown the interview so he stopped paying attention. So when Cameron asked him if he had a family, he absently said yes. Andrew could have corrected him, but since he figured he didn’t have a shot at the job, he decided to have a little fun. He made up a family on the spot.
Later that day he was offered the job. Now he had a fake family hanging over his head. Before he could set the record straight, Cameron introduced Andrew to everyone and told them all about his family. It’s been five years and he has never been able to tell the truth. The office will be quite surprised that Andrew’s amazing family is not in his crummy flat.
Andrew is also something of a loner His hobby is model trains. And he takes it very seriously—he has trains running in his flat al day long. He is part of an online group of train enthusiasts. He has never met them and he’s fine with that. He doesn’t really have a lot to do with other people.
A new person has just started working with them. Her name is Peggy and she is a ton of fun. She goes along with Andrew on one of his visits and not only manages to keep her composure, but even makes a couple of lightheaded jokes. Right after the visit she insists that they go to the pub for a drink. Andrew is blown away by this idea–drinking during the day! They have a nice time and Andrew starts to hate his job a little less.
He finds that Peggy (who is married and who believes Andrew is married) could be a friend to hang out with. She is certainly fun and they seem to be on a similar wavelength. She asks him questions and makes him feel alive.
Andrew also doesn’t have much family left. He has a contentious relationship with his sister Sally. Their history is complicated. Their father died when they were young and their mother sort of incapacitated herself. So Sally more or less took over things before she found a beau and took off. Her husband, Carl, clearly does not like Andrew (the feeling is mutual). When something happens to Sally, Carl is there to blame Andrew. And the blame starts to turn into blackmail.
What prevents this story from being a simple love triangle (will Andrew tell Peggy that he is not really married?) is all the dead people.
Being around all of the people who have nobody to look after them makes Andrew realize that he is not so different from these poor souls. Who would know if he died?
But even if nothing happens with Peggy, she is a breath of fresh air into Andrew’s life. She is so committed to the idea of helping the deceased, that she insists on travelling to a bookstore a few hours away because one of the dead persons had a picture of himself with a woman in the store. Peggy says the store is near her sisters and she’d like him t come along as they try to track down the woman in the picture.
This side story is remarkably touching and also leads to lots of questions as to the state of Peggy and Andrew’s respective marriages. her sister senses that something is going on, anyway.
Andrew’s train friends also prove to be more than anonymous faces (one is even a woman! GASP!) when Andrew goes to them for advice.
Obviously all of the threads come together and the story grows really exciting by the end as lies compound and loneliness looks to be the inevitability.
This was Roper’s first novel and I will definitely look out for more from him (I hope he can hang on to the title next time).
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