Music / Poetry
Tongue Fu comes out fighting
There are poetry nights … and then there’s Tongue Fu, the inspired combination of slam poetry with improvised music that has enlivened past Bristol Jazz and Blues Festivals and long been one of the UK’s hottest spoken word experiences.
Set up over a decade ago by poet Chris Redmond with musicians including (now Bristol-based) jazz bassist Riaan Vosloo, the Tongue Fu nights in London and at music festivals all over the country have attracted scores of the biggest names from the slam poetry world.
The likes of Kae Tempest, Akala, Soweto Kinch and Irvine Walsh (among many, many others) have taken their turn on stage, challenging the house band to invent a spontaneous soundtrack for their poetry with highly entertaining results.
is needed now More than ever
For Chris Redmond, there is more to the project than simple entertainment, however, and engagement with the world’s big issues is an important dimension to the project. “There is so much crisis in the world, but I always seek solace in music and poetry.”
He says. “Ours may be a small platform, but if we all use our voices, then we amplify the messages that need to cut through and try to create some counter to the narratives of fear, blame and hopelessness that are pumped at us incessantly.” So it was ironic that, in a year of cultural and political turmoil like 2020, events conspired to silence Tongue Fu’s forthright voices.
Happily, however, the undaunted Chris determined to use the opportunity to pull together a diverse cohort of musicians and poets to embark on a recording project, the result of which was Boat Building, an 11 track album released on November 26.
Vanessa Kisuule: fine sardonic feminist defiance
Recorded at Bristol’s Canyon Sound studios, there’s a strong local contribution with local laureate Vanessa Kisuule and former homeboy Dizraeli among the wordsmiths while Riaan is joined by Bristol musicians Victoria Klewin and Matt Brown among others. Vanessa contributes a couple of the album’s highlights: there’s fine sardonic feminist defiance on What’s Her Name? (with Dizraeli contributing) while her Before We Are Epitaph works a painfully poignant metaphor from a sinking migrant boat over an elegant, almost classical soundtrack. Diz crops up again alongside K.O.G.’s Kweku Sackey celebrating the chucking of that statue into the river on the Afrobeatsy Beiko Mliba, while London slammer Joshua Idehen’s Row is another migrant boat song that exudes the classic dignity of pure gospel.
While anything can happen on a Tongue Fu night Boat Building avoids the jarring risk of many patchwork compilations thanks to a rich production of sound and a consistency of musical quality throughout, with a proper Bristolian trip-hoppy cacophony finally bursting through on Chris’s meditative Boxes. And the well-chosen mix of voices bring their own music, whether the cool jazz inflections of New York’s AMYRA to the clear and weighted phrasing of London’s Zia Ahmed, all making for a full-flavoured menu of an album that finds much needed glimmers of hope in our otherwise overwhelming times.
The album and lyric book of Boat Building is available through Bandcamp as well as streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.
Read more: Interview: Vanessa Kisuule
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