EVENT | APEX ZERO ‘DRUMMER WARRIOR STORYTELLER’ LIVE AT RICH MIX LONDON

Event Info

In his most ambi­tious pro­ject to date, mul­tidiscip­lin­ary artist Apex Zero will present his pro­ject Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller. As part of the Leg­acy 101 Spir­it of The Vil­lage Fest­iv­al cel­eb­rat­ing the leg­acy of Black excel­lence emer­ging from the cre­at­ive renais­sance and move­ment, this will take place at Rich Mix on 29^th October.

Incor­por­at­ing music, film, dance, pho­to­graphy, paint­ing and an immers­ive live theatre pro­duc­tion that will engage audi­ences through mul­tiple medi­ums and cre­ated over the past five years Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller is a multi-layered exper­i­ence that inspires people and pro­vokes change with an insight­ful sense of vis­ion, unmatched flow, and atmo­spher­ic sound. The pro­ject strives to embody Nigeri­an author Chinua Achebe’s per­cep­tion of storytelling; the Drum­mer calls the people, the War­ri­or fights the war, the Storyteller recounts the events, cre­at­ing mean­ing for those who survive.

Cent­ring Afric­an Carib­bean per­spect­ives, the album explores per­son­al exper­i­ences of oppres­sion and lib­er­a­tion of dia­spor­ic, migrant and mar­gin­al­ised people in Lon­don and bey­ond through music, film, dance, pho­to­graphy, paint­ing, listen­ing exper­i­ences and per­form­ance in this enga­ging, immers­ive exhib­i­tion and stage show.

Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller focuses on the frus­tra­tion, anger, ali­en­a­tion and aware­ness caused by racism, its embed­ded struc­tures, police/state viol­ence and deni­al of oppor­tun­ity, whilst also striv­ing to break from the image of the ‘strug­gling’ Black fig­ure, explor­ing joy, love and aspir­a­tions to live and grow des­pite society’s obstacles.

The event will take place over two ses­sions, with the first being from 13.00 — 17.00  The exhib­ited work will include two col­lab­or­at­ive short films — Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller (Parts 1 & 2) — as well as pan­el talks from the artists involved. The second ses­sion will run from 19.00 — 23.00 where Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller will be presen­ted for the first time as an immers­ive live theatre pro­duc­tion. Using live music, dance, spoken word, visu­al effects, pro­jec­tion and sound design, audi­ences will be wel­comed into the uni­verse of the album and guided through its mul­ti­di­men­sion­al story.

For more inform­a­tion, go to:

www.apexzero.co.uk

https://www.village101.org/

EVENT SCHED­ULE

13:00 – 17:00:

An exhib­i­tion cur­ated with artists Ekua McMor­ris, Kyung Hwa Shon & Kyung­min Son. The exhib­ited work will include two col­lab­or­at­ive short films — Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller (Parts 1 & 2) — built around the album’s music, as well as pho­to­graphy by Ekua McMor­ris, expan­ded paint­ing by Stu­dio God­son and the film crew, live paint­ing by Dora Lam, pieces by Metal­s­miths Rox­anne Simone, Gregory & Tesser­as Black­smiths Ltd and Lucie Gled­hill, and out­fits cur­ated by Charl­ita ‘Lita-Styles’ Hall and Honey Malaolu. Each piece inter­prets the music and themes of the album or were cre­ated through the film­ing pro­cess. The films, the first of which recently won an Audi­ence Award at the Short Focus Film Fest­iv­al 2022, will be shown on The Stage’s main screen, fol­lowed by pan­el talks with the artists at 14:00 and 16:00, chaired by Muti ‘Mutiv­a­tion’ Musafiri.

As well as those men­tioned above, Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller fea­tures work made in col­lab­or­a­tion with Steph Be, Theo ‘God­son’ Oloy­ade, Alethia Ant­o­nia, FUB­U­NATION, 3000CeanHill, Chiba Visu­als, Alicia Warner, Infor­mo­tion World­wide, Vil­lage 101, Glob­al­Fac­tion, Breakin’ Con­ven­tion, Slim Year­wood, Anna Beel, Akil Wilson and Ukom­bozii Ances­tral Drums. Sup­por­ted by Arts Coun­cil England.

19:00 – 23:00:

Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller will be presen­ted for the first time as an immers­ive live theatre pro­duc­tion craf­ted with cre­at­ive dir­ect­or and cho­reo­graph­er Muti ‘Mutiv­a­tion’ Musafiri. Using live music, dance, spoken word, visu­al effects, pro­jec­tion and sound design, audi­ences will be wel­comed into the uni­verse of the album and guided through its mul­ti­di­men­sion­al story. The per­form­ance will explore Afric­an Carib­bean storytelling, Spir­itu­alty and polit­ic­al tra­di­tions. The cast and crew will pro­cess and inter­pret their own and col­lect­ive exper­i­ences of the infin­ite inter­woven stor­ies of home, dia­spora, dis­place­ment, migra­tion and more that are cent­ral to that which is labelled ‘Black Experiences’.

The night will end with an after­party, with DJs spin­ning a wide range of loc­al and glob­al Black music that’ll no doubt spark rap and dance cyphers.

The Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller live theatre pro­duc­tion is a col­lab­or­a­tion between Apex Zero, Muti ‘Mutiv­a­tion’  Musafiri, Daniel Oluwasayo Olabode, Kit­map­per, Tilé Gichigi-Liperé, Poet­ikah, Guy Kelton Jones Sr., Moussa Dembele, Dem­bis Thioung, Ukom­bozii Ances­tral Drums, Andre Bright, Cor­rie Onyx Dav­id King, Grace Ogun­dipe Akin­bode, Charl­ita ‘Lita-Styles’ Hall, Honey Malaolu, and fea­tures music made by Mic­all Parkn­sun, Al Lawson, In:Theory, RU1 Fam, Isatta Sher­iff, Logic, Ren­ee Soul, Big Cakes, Jazz T, Crazy Haze, Mazzi & S.O.U.L. Pur­pose, Raquel, Nilotika Cul­tur­al Ensemble. Sup­por­ted by Arts Coun­cil England.

About Apex Zero

Ori­gin­ally from West Lon­don, Apex Zero is a multi-dis­cip­lin­ary artist who works as an emcee, beat­maker, film­maker, pho­to­graph­er, and writer. An incred­ible lyr­i­cist, he cre­ates multi-layered exper­i­ences that inspire people and pro­voke change with his insight­ful sense of vis­ion, unmatched flow, and atmo­spher­ic sound.

Apex’s new pro­ject ‘Drum­mer War­ri­or Storyteller’ is his most ambi­tious pro­ject to date, it was cre­ated over five years, the pro­ject incor­por­ates music, film, dance, pho­to­graphy, paint­ing and immers­ive live theatre per­form­ances that engage audi­ences through mul­tiple mediums.

The multi-layered visu­al album aspires to encap­su­late Nigeri­an author Chinua Achebe’s per­cep­tion of storytelling. While the Drum­mer calls and gath­ers the people and the War­ri­or fights the war, the Storyteller recounts the events, cre­at­ing his­tory, embody­ing the memory of those who sur­vived, giv­ing their sur­viv­al meaning.

In this album, Apex explores lin­ear and non-lin­ear nar­rat­ives, cul­tur­al per­cep­tions of time, and his per­son­al exper­i­ences as an Afric­an-Carib­bean dia­spor­ic grow­ing up in Lon­don. In addi­tion to illus­trat­ing some of the struggles and pres­sures faced by people of migra­tion, dis­place­ment and dia­spora, the album also high­lights moments of lib­er­a­tion, joy and growth.

Apex worked with Vil­lage 101 Stu­di­os and cre­at­ive pro­du­cer Steph Be to adapt the album into a short film, with fund­ing from Arts Coun­cil Eng­land. Through­out the film­ing pro­cess, numer­ous pieces of con­tem­por­ary art were cre­ated by col­lab­or­at­ors. Impress­ive por­traits of ‘The Ancest­ors’ depict­ing Apex’s fam­ily and pil­lars of the Afric­an Carib­bean com­munity were taken by the pho­to­graph­er and aca­dem­ic Dr Ekua McMor­ris, whose work ‘Black Light’ had inspired one of the scenes. Jonzi D, founder of Breakin’ Con­ven­tion, Omowale Pert-em-Hru, founder of Ukom­bozii Ances­tral Drums, and Shez­al Laing, founder of Sankofa Day were among those portrayed.

Breakin’ Con­ven­tion 2021 hos­ted the film’s première screen­ing fol­lowed by sell-out exhib­i­tions at The Hack­ney Social (aligned with the 230^th anniversary of the Haitian Revolu­tion) and Bernie Grant Arts Centre. The film also won the Audi­ence Award at the Short Focus Film Fest­iv­al 2022, and it will be released in Novem­ber 2022 with the music.

The next exhib­i­tion will be part of Vil­lage 101’s ‘Leg­acy 101: Spir­it of the Vil­lage’ Fest­iv­al, with an immers­ive exhib­i­tion and immers­ive live theatre pro­duc­tion at Rich Mix on Oct 29^th 2022 and will high­light through­out Apex’s pas­sion to retain the under­ly­ing themes of social and polit­ic­al issues over beats that act as a roller­coast­er ride to match the emotions.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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