The rain starts half an hour before Moovipussi’s gig. It rumbles to the ceiling of the backstage white tent and clears the front of Nyege Nyege’s main stage.
Heidi Finnberg, Milla Lahtinen and Niklas Blomberg are focused as serious. Soiva’s baby doll rests next to Niklas’s small keyboard and looks at the roof of the tent with worried eyes.
Will the rain stop, or is Muovipussi destined to play on an empty field?
We are in the city of Jinja, Uganda, right at the point where the waters of the Nile separate from Lake Victoria and begin their journey towards the Mediterranean Sea.
The plastic bag has ended up behind the main stage of the Nyege Nyege festival in the rain by chance. Someone had seen the band performing at the Kilbi festival in Switzerland and recommended it to the organizers of Nyege Nyege.
– And then we got an invitation to Uganda, out of the blue, Heidi Finnberg says, still a little confused.
Nyege Nyege is Luganda and means an irresistible desire to dance.
Nyege Nyege Festival is the largest music event in East Africa.
This year the festival was four days long, there were seven performance stages and more than 350 performers.
10,000 festival guests were expected each day.
Nyege Nyege’s core is electronic dance music, but its spectrum includes a wild selection of reggae, metal, rap, traditional music and their combinations.
The Muovipussi band from Finland is also suitable for this setting.
The festival organizers wanted the Plastic Bag to go to Uganda, but they couldn’t afford the plane tickets. The band applied for a grant for the trip, to no avail.
– We didn’t want to refuse the invitation, even though we had to put all the band’s savings into the bank to pay for the trip, Heidi Finnberg says.
Milla Lahtinen and Heidi Finnberg of the plastic bag just before the start of the gig.
“It’s crazy that a band of this size gets invited to such a special place.”
“This is such a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Just minutes before the start of Muovipussi’s gig, the rain subsides and finally stops completely. Heidi, Milla and Niklas tune their instruments on stage.
A rope is dropped from the ceiling of the stage, with a metal padlock at the end.
Few people gather in front of the stage, who want to see the only European band of the festival.
Watch this video to see how Muovipussi charmed the crowd on Nyege Nyege’s main stage:
The music of the plastic bag is a combination of electronic beat, singing, shouting, performance and acrobatics.
The front row sings along with Niklas Blomberg and Heidi Finnberg, without understanding the words: “Raksa! Raksa!”
Medicalization! Milla Lahtinen sings and spins while hanging from her hair.
Part of the audience dances wildly, some watch the show almost unmoved, confused.
Kenyan black metal band Chovu the musicians jump and dance and mosh from the beginning to the end of Moovipussi’s gig. The bands already met at the soundcheck and have hung out together in the festival area.
Chovu’s vocal soloist Preston Samanda is in awe of Muovipussi’s music and performance.
– I have never seen anything so strange on stage. They are really nice and relaxed people, but when they perform they are unbelievably energetic and entertaining. Crazy! Preston Samanda is glowing.
“Everybody has evil inside”
Metal music is extremely marginal in Kenya. There are three death metal bands in the country, of which Chovu is, according to their own words, the roughest, meanest and darkest.
Preston Samanda’s singing style is metallic, but the lyrics of the songs still have a purpose.
The band members are all from different tribes, and the songs are mostly based on the beliefs and traditional stories of a Kenyan tribe.
– We study witchcraft and evil forces. I believe that we all have evil and demons inside of us that can cause mental illness or cause us to do bad things. Through music we can make the evil in us visible. And to stay sane, Preston Samanda explains.
Chovu is used to playing infrequently, in small venues and usually without pay. The band’s Instagram account only has around 500 followers. But now the band is about to take to the main stage at Nyege Nyege, the closing night of the festival on Sunday.
This is Chovu’s first gig abroad and a big opportunity.
– Our future depends on this gig, says Preston Samanda.
On Sunday, just a couple of hours before the estimated start time of the gig, Preston and Brian are leaving for the slaughterhouse.
– We’re going to buy blood, Preston explains.
In the backstage tent, Preston splashes cow’s blood on the white collared shirt he borrowed from Milla, on the clothes and skin of the other band members. The face is painted white.
Chovu is ready for the most important gig in its history.
Check out this video to see what kind of blood feast Chovu organized on Nyege Nyege’s main stage:
Preston Samanda and drummer Babra Simaloi greet the spirits of the Nile and Lake Victoria at the beginning of the show.
Chovu’s raw sound resides in Brian Saibore’s guitar.
Preston Samanda beats himself and the audience to bloody delight.
“Through music we can make visible the evil that is in us.”
“And to stay sane.”
Preston Samanda sings, screams, screams, pours blood from the kalebash on himself and the other players, writhes on the floor, bends himself towards the night sky and screams again. Chovu’s heavy and dark sound drags the audience along.
Metal music may be on the fringes in Kenya and Uganda, but right now it’s at the center of everything.
Playing and dancing under the threat of terrorism
Nyege Nyege festival area is entered through three security checks. Each one has mobile through-lighting devices, the bags are opened and the pockets are emptied.
Heavily armed police and soldiers are everywhere, dozens, hundreds.
– The US and British embassies have announced that the festival may be targeted by the Islamist terrorist organization ADF. That is why they do not recommend their citizens to participate in Nyege Nyege, explains the festival director Derek Debru.
The Ugandan leadership’s attitude towards the wild and colorful Nyege Nyege has been problematically ambivalent year after year.
Nyege Nyege has twice been awarded the best tourism event in Uganda.
On the other hand, it has been difficult for those in power to accept happy and multi-valued spending.
The festival has been accused of “promoting sexual immorality”.
The organizing permit has sometimes been revoked, but then granted again.
Now, under the threat of terrorism, the president Yoweri Museveni has promised to protect Nyege Nyege and has deployed 300 extra soldiers and police.
The festival will be carried out safely under the strict supervision of the police and soldiers. But many festival-goers cancel their attendance for fear of terror. Especially paying Europeans arrive in Jinja much less than expected.
An unlikely band friendship
Muovipussi and Chovu will meet on the Monday after the festival on the green shore of the Nile. Two bands, one from Helsinki, the other from the slums of Nairobi. What connects Mouvipus and Chovu?
According to Heidi Finnberg, the unifying factor is that both make really marginal music. Not many people know about plastic bags in Finland, metal music is an almost unknown concept in Kenya.
– Maybe that’s why it’s been easy for us to understand each other and talk directly about the right things, without unnecessary small talk, Heidi Finnberg reflects.
Preston Samanda says Plastic Bag’s performance had a decisive influence on what Chovu did on Nyege Nyege’s main stage.
– The plastic bag show was like a slap in the face. I woke up in the night, woke up the others and said we have to do this big, theatrically. That’s why we went to the slaughterhouse to buy blood.
But according to Preston, the most important connection can be found in the gaze of Heidi, Milla and Niklas.
– There is warmth in their eyes. When you talk to them, you get the feeling that they see you exactly as you are. It’s the same energy that Muovipussi charms its audience with, says Preston Samanda.
Will Muovipussi return to tour Africa?
Will Chovu perform at Tuska Festival?
The massively calm Nile already knows, but doesn’t tell.
In the video below, you can watch how Muovipussi and Chovu improvise together in Ylen Aamu’s live broadcast from the Nyege Nyege festival.