Musical Urbanism: A Lyrical Experiment // De Joe Quarcoo, Jinty Jackson #cities #music #Africa

Jinty and De Joe co-hosted this amazing experimental session at the 2021 Urban Festival organized by SA Cities. #UrbanFestival2021 #SACities

Our process: Collaboration in the process of experimental songwriting - a bottom-up perspective. To partner with the Musical Urbanism Project or for inquiry send an email to music.dejoequarcoo@gmail.com
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Cities are emergent in nature. The youth are the largest and most active stakeholders in Africa. Understanding the urban aspirations of youth and other urban dwellers may offer insight into what just and sustainable African cities may look like. We have chosen to do this in a fun way – a lyrical experiment.

The song, “Southern Cities”, composed by Ghanaian musician and insurgent planner, De Joe Quarcoo is a love song for Southern cities, an angry call to action, and quite possibly the first original song about urbanism in the Global South. The song and music video spliced together the connections between a group of scholars from all over Africa (Djibouti, Ghana, Egypt, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and from Europe (Italy). We set ourselves the lyrical, open-ended task of communicating our connection to and our passion for cities of the Global South and the emergent possibilities within them.

Our session is a lyrical experiment. An open-ended question and conversation about your experience of the city, encounters in the city, and aspirations for your city. It’s an experiment on enlarging the conversation beyond planners, academics, and other important folks to reach the people (especially the youth) who live in our cities.
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