I've Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be

Landmark collection of powerful field recordings produced by Grammy® Award-Winner Ian Brennan in collaboration with Marilena Umuhoza Delli. Six Degrees Records is proud to announce a landmark new album from Witch Camp (Ghana); Ive Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be. Produced by GRAMMY® Award-winning producer and author Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project) in collaboration with his wife, Italian-Rwandan filmmaker, author, and photographer, Marilena Umuhoza Delli, whose idea it was to record the album inspired by her own upbringing. Marilena says My own mother is a disabled widow from Rwanda and is the same age as most of these women we met at the Witch Camps. We grew up poor, living in a factory. It is impossible for me to look at these womens circumstance and not see my own mother and an inhumane fate that but for a matter of geography could as well have been hers. It is impossible to think that this practice continues in the 21st century. Ive Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be collects extraordinary field recordings made at Ghanas infamous witch camps; settlements where these women accused of witchcraft can find safety and community; these women persecuted as witches are often overwhelmed by mental health issues and physical illnesses, while others are shunned and ostracized as a ruse to steal their land after their husbands passing. Marilena says; Belief in witchcraft is sometimes used as simple scapegoating for the arrival of bad luck such as foul weather or illness. More commonly, it is a justification for pre-existing hate and prejudice. A member of my own family was driven out of her village in Malawi as a child after she was accused of being a witch due to having a white father a fate that could have been my own if our places of birth were simply swapped. Recorded at multiple locations in Ghana, the songs featured on Ive Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be are largely instant compositions, created using all and any objects from the immediate environment for instrumentation; corn husks, a teapot, tin cans, tree branches, and even a balloon left over from the political rally. Over six hours of music was recorded in 100 clandestine gatherings from across three villages, with all but one person singing solo for the first time. Sung in regional dialect or the lesser-spoken languages of Mampruli and Dagbani, the lyrics are untranslated and indecipherable even too many locals as they are not in the dominant languages of English or Akan. Marilena Umuhoza Delli and Ian Brennan have dedicated their lives and careers to providing a platform for the censored or unheard, spanning those targeted for albinism on Tanzanias Ukerewe Island and genocide survivors in both Rwanda and Cambodia, to the homeless community in Oakland, CA, prisoners at Zomba Prison in Malawi, and now, the women of Ghanas witch camps.

1: I Must Build a New Home
2: Hatred Drove Me from My Home
3: Wizard Drum
4: Protection
5: Witch Song
6: I Am a Beggar for a Home
7: Only God Can Judge Me
8: I Was Accused
9: Everywhere I Turn, There Is Pain
10: Hunted
11: We Are No Different Than You
12: Love
13: I Have Lost All That I Love
14: When I Was Ill, You Didn't Come to Visit Me
15: Love, Please
16: Abandoned (Forced Into a Life of Prostitution)
17: If the River Runs Dry, the Canoe Cannot Rise
18: I Trusted My Family, They Betrayed Me
19: There Are No Promises in This World
20: Left to Live Like an Animal

Number of Discs: 1

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