Womad Festival
Chartlon Park, London

THE Womad Festival, now in it’s 42nd year, has always had a political edge. Indeed, the showcasing of artists predominantly from the majority world in the heartlands of their former colonisers could hardly avoid the traces of that relationship, and is pregnant with commentary on it, regardless of the extent to which it is explicitly articulated. 

But explicitly articulated it often is, and a spirit of joyful defiance — of coloniality, of chauvinism, of borders and boundaries of all hues — is in many ways a defining characteristic of many of the acts here. 

Saturday night headliners Gogol Bordello capture this spirit with an exuberance and passion that is thoroughly infectious. Opening with a fistful of bangers from their iconic Underdog World Strike and Trans-Continental Hustle albums, the struggle of the immigrant in a hostile environment is front and centre — and it is a struggle which is waged always with ferocious dignity and determination, never victimhood. 

“If you give me the invitation to hear your bells of freedom chime,” frontman Eugene Hutz warns us in Immigraniada, “to hell with your double standards — we’re coming rougher every time!” 

It was probably inevitable that wealth and success would take the edge off Hutz’s later songwriting — it is, after all, the working class who produce not only all wealth, but all cultural innovation — but it certainly hasn’t diluted the band’s performances, which remain as barnstorming as ever. Sergey Ryabtsev in particular (“The Professor,” a former theatre director), delivers an absolutely blinding violin solo on Start Wearing Purple, leaving the audience completely mesmerised. 

Leyla McCalla’s politics are more subtle and understated, but nevertheless present. Born in New York to Haitian socialists, she embodies that country’s unbowed and unabashed autonomy. Still being punished to this day for pulling off the world’s first successful slave rebellion, Haiti’s mere existence is a heroic act of defiance to which McCalla’s healing and soulful music bears testimony. 

“These wounds are so old,” she reminds us in Sun Without the Heat, a song inspired by Fredrick Douglass, and elsewhere she reprises the work of the 1970s Haitian resistance collective Atis Independan. 

There is nothing downtrodden about any of it, but instead a life-affirming celebration of the power of love, connection and understanding as a weapon against repression. The songwriting has a disarming simplicity and honesty, with a heavy blues influence, and evoking at times early PJ Harvey, 1920s jazz, Velvet Underground and even Duane Eddy. 

She tells us she is inspired by the Haitian revolution, and the enduring relevance of its commitment to ending exploitation, and we in turn should be inspired at how the great grandchildren of that world-shaking event are continuing to change the world with their commitment to justice. 

I leave the gig reminded of quotes from two great revolutionaries: Che Guevara: “The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love” and Bobby Sands: “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”

Politics are also on the menu for the Fallout Marching Band, formed over 40 years ago to keep spirits high in the protest movement of the time, in particular the anti-nuclear campaign, and still performing their own original material today. 

It is great to see that the band, an evolving collective of upwards of 30 members, now include the children of some of the longer-term members, some as young as 11. Punchy horn-lines and banging percussion bring a carnival atmosphere, reminding us that resistance should always be joyful and celebratory. It is, after all, an expression of our deepest humanity — the impulse to reject injustice and abuse. 

Among the audience, the impulse for solidarity is most visibly on display in the many visual expressions of support for the Palestinian freedom struggle. The genocide in Gaza, and our government’s open support for it, has become the obscene backdrop to our daily lives, with the enduring resistance the only glimmer of hope and humanity in a tidal wave of atrocities and desolation. Yet, bizarrely, none of the political talks scheduled at the festival address the issue of Palestine. Even the Byline Times-hosted panel discussion What the Papers Don’t Say ignores it, eschewing discussion of any aspect of the Gaza genocide and the British military involvement in delivering it. 

It makes me wonder — do D-notices even apply to Womad discussion forums?

Fortunately DAM are here to plug the gap. Palestine’s original rap outfit, performing to a sea of Palestinian flags, their searing sound combines beautifully haunting Arabic melodies with electronic beats and basslines of all kinds, from dubstep to grime to hiphop. 

Paving the way for powerful new storytellers such as MC Adbul, who began telling the world about the plight of his homeland three years ago at the age of 12 (“We don’t talk bling, we burn tyres and its hotter than your gold rims”), they are the epitome of the hiphop epithet “keep it real.” 

“From the tunnels of Gaza,” they ask us, “what is more underground than this?” In a time of genocide, it is only resistance that keeps us human.