The BC World Music Collective is coming to Quesnel this Sunday, Oct. 21.
They are a group made up of 13 artists who were originally brought together to play at the Vancouver Island Music Festival in the summer of 2015. The musicians come from all over the world, including Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Zimbabwe, the UK, and even Canadian First Nations.
They were brought together for a world music show, and enjoyed it so much, they decided to form a World Music band.
Although they come from countries all across the world, all of the artists now call B.C. their home.
Everyone in the group pursues their own projects as well, some in bands like the Paperboys or Locarno and others enjoy solo careers.
They will be in Quesnel on a tour of northern B.C., which will include shows in Prince George, Burns Lake, Terrace, Smithers and more.
Tonye Agabana, from the UK, is a singer and rapper, and member of the B.C. World Music Collective.
She says everyone in the band has different cultural leanings or styles of music, but all of them “have our roots in the music of our soul, so everything works together. And all of the music that we come from, which is like R&B, soul, music from Cuba, music from Brazil, it all works so beautifully together.”
Each of the band members has music they write on their own outside of the Collective, and Agabana says from there they will bring in certain sounds or ideas they like and build on it as a band. Which, she adds, “is the best part about the collective, how our music is transformed by all the different players.”
She says working with the Collective means hearing music in a different way. “Everybody has their own relationship with it and hearing how I hear something in my head, how it’s interpreted by so many different musicians, so many different artists that are at the top of their game musically, it’s just incredible. It is transformative.”
Before meeting to play together at the festival in 2015, she says they had “kind of all been around each other,” playing other festivals, or playing in other bands with each other. But she says, since they’ve come together there has been a lot of new relationships, and a deepening of the relationships that already existed between band members. “We are essentially one big happy family.”
Agabana used to live in Dawson Creek and says she has been to Quesnel on her own, but not with the Collective. “I’m super excited. We’ve never been there together, but this is going to be an incredible show and people are going to really enjoy all the different — the cultural melting pot that’s happening onstage and inside your ears.
“It’s all based in rhythm, it’s all based in grooves, and the message is always the same. It’s always about love and community.”
The concert is this Sunday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Chuck Mobley Theatre at Correlieu Secondary School. Tickets are available at the door, or can be bought in advance at Green Tree Health & Wellness, K-Max, Save on Foods, or the Occidental.