Staff Benda Bilili


You can find hope in the most unlikely of places -- and the unlikelier the place and story is, the more it gives me hope for the rest of us and the miseries we witness and inflict on each other. Staff Benda Bilili (Show What's Hidden) is a musical group of street kids from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The live around what passes for a zoo in Kinshasa, scraping out a living by performing with their home made instruments -- homemade guitars, single-stringed harp made of wire stretched over a tin can, and a drum which is a plastic chair beaten by flip-flops. The band members are all disabled, having suffered from polio as kids. Listen to them below.


The band won the 2009 Artist Award at Womex and are now off on a European tour. How cool is that?

For more, check out their MySpace page.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blogs of Note

Who Would Jesus Hate? -- described as providing "anecdotal evidence of how religion is on the wrong side of every social issue." Fugetaboutit! -- hilarious site from a "48-year-old shrinking Italian comedian ." Take the tagline for instance: "I saw the face of Jesus in my lasagna ... briefly."
Read more

Civil disobedience is called for

Image
In an act of desperation, Tim DeCristopher chose civil disobedience to disrupt the bidding process that saw 149,000 acres of public land leased off to oil companies in Utah. The lease of the land to oil companies, to allow drilling, has been contested by many who wish to preserve the pristine land, located near Arches National Park, the White River, the greater Desolation Canyon region, Labyrinth Canyon, the benches east of Canyonlands National Park, Nine Mile Canyon, the Book Cliffs and the Deep Creek Mountains. It is one of the final sell-off by the dying Bush administration. DeCristopher showed at the auction, registered as a bidder, and started bidding -- and winning -- with no intention of purchasing or paying for the auctions he won. Way to go dude! You're a hero!
Read more
GT Ripple Want to say goodbye to that ole boring desktop? Try GT Ripple. It adds nice soothing movement to your desktop. Once you've downloaded and installed the app, you will need to images to ripple. Go here: Visual Paradox Deviant Art
Read more