Lively Hoods to Livelihoods
Lead: Dr Leif Petersen
Funders and Partners: National Lotteries Commission, Substance Films
Cape Town, November 2018 – The Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation NPC with support from the National Lotteries Commission of South Africa proudly present Lively Hoods to Livelihoods. This ground-breaking project puts South Africa’s depth of music talent on the map and creates a remarkable artistic legacy through the showcase album “State of the Nation” (due for release mid-2019).
In recently completing a 9,000km road trip throughout all of South Africa’s nine provinces, the project team uncovered a considerable number of talented township musicians, who revealed the need to promote their music beyond the local context to bolster their success. We initially identified more than 50 musicians, with whom we began strategizing a project to build on their talents and positively impact South Africa’s township economy.
Each musician will undergo a specific training course in sound engineering and music production to be equipped with valuable skills in music production in a technical training course. At the conclusion of the training programme, and as part of the training process each of these musicians will in-turn recruit five new artists from their home communities to produce new songs.
SLF’s painstaking process of artist evaluation and recordings, in collaboration with London musician Arthur Collier, has allowed us to showcase our pick of this talent and co-produce an album. Furthermore (in collaboration with Substance Films) making a documentary of this process, detailing the travel, encounters, recording and release of the project. The collaborative album, “State of the Nation” reflects on contemporary South Africa 25 years into democracy, and includes a wide variety of musical influences and artistic impressions from poetry, Rap, R&B, ballads and break beats. In a hugely ambitious project it will entertain and challenge alike in a soundscape of creativity. We cannot wait to share this talent with the world.
As a project finale, SLF will launch the finalised album at AfrikaBurn 2019. A number of the artists featured in the documentary and album will be performing, allowing for them to grow their profiles and listening audiences.
This project brings together SLF’s research, engagement and innovation programs in a new and exciting way. We look forward to providing project and creative updates over the next 12 months!







