April - June 2022 — Music

Congolese slam poet and rapper Orakle Ngoy is a singular female voice in Congolese hip hop. Her lyrics highlight the realities of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo from the perspective of women. She raps about sexism and gender discrimination, and advocates for the respect for African women in general and Congolese women in particular.

In December 2019 and February 2020 Orakle and Swiss musician Sarah Elena Müller aka DJ Natur_E spent time working together in Kinshasa and Bern on tandem research trips exploring their shared interests in feminist and queer projects. Orakle now returns to Switzerland for a residency from April to June 2022 at Atelier Mondial in Basel, which will expand on the foundation established during the preceding research trips.

Creative writing is a tool for Orakle’s activism. During the residency she plans to develop a project called MAWOZO (“thoughts” in Swahili) which will explore feminist utopias, dedicated to texts and images that highlight women and feminisms in all forms. The residency period will allow for both the dynamism of oral discussions and freer and more frequent exchanges of words, which will give the project a very concrete dimension, as well as a written record on these feminist and postcolonial issues.

Alongside this, Orakle will further develop her live set and performative setting with Sarah, and expand her networks in the Swiss feminist music scene to feed into her own organisation, the Afrika Diva Collectif and the Yambi City Festival. The residency will also provide Orakle a focused timeslot to organise her own professional artistic profile and connect with Swiss and Congolese musicians living in Switzerland for possible featurings on her upcoming album.