White African Power

It's a bold and ambitious idea to enter an isolated community who have no experience of singing and ask them to compose and perform for an album. Life is incredibly hard for an albino in Tanzania, who often faces social ostracism and physical violence. Ukerewe Island on Lake Victoria is a sort of sanctuary for albinos – a refuge from a society that rejects them. It offers them at the very least a relatively protected home.
Music producer Ian Brennan discovered that the inhabitants had been excluded from making music from birth – even being discouraged from musical participation in the churches that they attended. His project was to find volunteers from the community with sufficient courage to throw themselves into the challenge. They came forward: 18 music lovers with a secret desire to sing and perform. They are now known as the Tanzania Albinism Collective and this album contains a selection from the fruit of their modest musical efforts. It's a mixture of short solo vocal compositions (sung in local dialects and accompanied by very rudimentary guitar and percussion) and group collaborations (some with keyboard, some with guitar). The vocals are naive, the playing basic and the melodies largely derivative of church hymns. The mood is melancholic to the extreme. However there is a great sense of release and, by the end of the album, a sense of self-expression and personal achievement is palpable. Poignant and uplifting in a curious way.