{"id":40991,"date":"2020-02-05T11:14:29","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T10:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/arkan-metal-is-african\/"},"modified":"2020-05-16T14:12:25","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T13:12:25","slug":"arkan-metal-is-african","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/arkan-metal-is-african\/","title":{"rendered":"Arka\u2019n : &#8220;Metal is African&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-36243 size-full pam-featured-content\"  src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/07027766-arka%E2%80%99n-e1580895650955.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"524\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/07027766-arka%E2%80%99n-e1580895650955.jpg 800w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/07027766-arka%E2%80%99n-e1580895650955-759x497.jpg 759w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/07027766-arka%E2%80%99n-e1580895650955-661x433.jpg 661w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/07027766-arka%E2%80%99n-e1580895650955-465x305.jpg 465w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/07027766-arka%E2%80%99n-e1580895650955-375x246.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(min-width:1010px) 759px,100vw\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\">In Africa, metal has caught on and brought new bands to the foreground, offering an original take on the genre which blends with African heritage. In West Africa, the Togolese group Arka\u2019n is one of the most successful expressions of this trend. PAM spoke with them at the Access event in Ghana.<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><b><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Metal comes from rock. Rock comes from blues. Blues comes from the Blacks deported to America. The very basis of metal comes from home. Metal is African!\u201d. These are the words that introduced the memorable show Arka&#8217;n delivered at the ACCES 2019 conference in front of a shaken and delighted audience. In Accra, the band was only 3 hours away from their home base, Lom\u00e9, from where the five members come from. Togo and its culture have an important place in their music. Indeed, the particularity of the group is their original fusion between Togolese musicality and folklore and pure and rough metal; metal-fusion, afro-metal, new metal, their genre does not answer to any classification. Their album <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Za Keli<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, released in February 2019, has generated a growing craze in West Africa, global Africa and in different parts of the world by the power of internet. If Mass Aholou (percussions) et Francis Amevo (bass) left Accra early to go home, PAM managed to meet Rock Ahavi (vocals and guitar), Richard Cico (drums), Enrico Ahavi (vocals) and B\u00e9atrice Manigat (manager)<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\"><b><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/>Can you tell us a<span style=\"color: #f2994a;\">bou<\/span>t Arka&#8217;n\u2019s debut?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rock: Arka&#8217;n was created in 2009, first by me alone with guitar, piano and voice. Then in 2013 I had the opportunity to engage with other musicians to form a real band. It was a formation that lasted until 2016, when we created the current formation.\u00a0<br style=\"clear: both;\" \/>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N-h0mjzeogA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\"><b><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/>How did your life in Togo influence the musical direction you chose?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enrico: I wouldn&#8217;t say Togo helped us <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(laughs<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). But it did bring the traditional side of our music, the fusion between metal and our culture. It&#8217;s mainly our father who brought us rock albums.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rock: At a time in Togo there was also a real rock, blues and jazz culture between Togolese and foreign musicians. There was a town on the edge of Lom\u00e9, Kpalim\u00e9, where we used to buy ACDC or Scorpions cassettes at the market! It was easy. That&#8217;s when we started out with rock and then, with the Internet, we discovered other forms of rock, like metal. We listen to Metallica, Slipknot&#8230; For us, our fusion with Togolese rhythms is not sought after, it&#8217;s natural. It&#8217;s as if we were speaking metal in our own language. But I noticed that when we listen to metal drum patterns, they sound similar with the patterns we play in our villages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Richard: I started with Ndombolo. Then I came across Jimi Hope: he&#8217;s the one who makes rock music in Togo. I got a taste for it and with Rock I discovered metal. I&#8217;m really into metal now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beatrice: The question of Arka\u2019n\u2019s influences often comes up, and it&#8217;s always difficult to answer. People often try to place the band by saying &#8220;Arka&#8217;n is new metal, it&#8217;s a little bit of this, a little bit of that, they&#8217;re influenced by that&#8221;. They find it hard to understand that a band can come up with something completely innovative. I think that&#8217;s what makes the band special: it&#8217;s new, it&#8217;s unpublished. African metal critics and specialized magazines were forced to admit that we never heard that before. People are starting to understand it, especially after seeing Arka&#8217;n concerts. It&#8217;s a band that&#8217;s making history, and that can inspire other artists to think that they too can create something new.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\"><b><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/>In your concerts, you mention a metaphysical portal that your music is supposed to open. What link do you make between spirituality and metal?\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enrico: The notorious dark side of the Force <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(laughs)<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">! Western metal is often perceived as visually very marked, with a dark imagery, which may for some evoke occult or even satanist forces, although it is not always the case. But at Arka&#8217;n, spirituality and metal go together. Our messages are spiritual: we talk about depths, about the forces that surround us, about African spirits&#8230; Even in the compositions and the lyrics, you can see that. There&#8217;s a connection with spirituality because that&#8217;s what we are. We can&#8217;t escape from ourselves and we were born spiritual.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rock: Often the spiritual is what we don&#8217;t see. However, for Arka&#8217;n and Africa in general, physical forces and things are not two separate things. On the contrary, one is the extension of the other, its continuity. Bodies, stones, trees have souls. When we try to see the energies, it&#8217;s something else. We don&#8217;t separate the spiritual from our music, everything is aligned. The word &#8220;Arcane&#8221; refers precisely to hidden sides of the universe<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 18px; font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<br style=\"clear: both;\" \/>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x6Nl0A_nVxU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\"><b><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/>How are you perceived by different African audiences?\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Richard: I think when you go look for our videos on internet, you will see that people like it. The numbers are growing exponentially, and the fact that we were selected for the ACCES conference shows it even more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rock: Our music is not a European version of metal that we grafted in Africa. We speak Ewe, our local language, so people understand the spiritual meaning of what we sing. The rhythms we play are not purely European, and people can identify with them. Sometimes we play Arka&#8217;n to a guy from the village and he tells us it&#8217;s good music from home, he can relate to what we do, just like Western metal fans. Because what we do is kind of unique and not locked in a pop tendency, our audience is not divided into age groups either. Everybody can listen to us<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 18px; font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\"><b><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/>As insiders, how do you think the African metal scene is doing and evolving?<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><\/span><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rock: The scene is evolving a lot in Africa, especially in Eastern and Southern Africa: Uganda, South Africa, Botswana, Kenya&#8230; In North Africa as well: in Morocco or Tunisia for example. Metal&#8217;s really taking off because metal is about artists who claim. Metal has almost the same consciousness as reggae. It&#8217;s a pretty aggressive genre, that tells a kind of rage very present in Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_36249\" style=\"width: 1410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36249\" class=\"size-full wp-image-36249\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/4d9da4c9-arkan-acces-2020.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1400\" height=\"789\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/4d9da4c9-arkan-acces-2020.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/4d9da4c9-arkan-acces-2020-759x428.jpg 759w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/4d9da4c9-arkan-acces-2020-1010x569.jpg 1010w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/4d9da4c9-arkan-acces-2020-661x373.jpg 661w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/4d9da4c9-arkan-acces-2020-465x262.jpg 465w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/4d9da4c9-arkan-acces-2020-375x211.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(min-width:1010px) 759px,100vw\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-36249\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arka&#8217;n, Acces 2020 par Sonia Achdjian<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Africa, metal has caught on and brought new bands to the foreground, offering an original take on the genre which blends with African heritage. In West Africa, the Togolese group Arka\u2019n is one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":36243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11036,7835,9405],"tags":[],"location":[7994],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40991"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=40991"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=40991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}