The WOW Foundation has announced its line-up for WOW Sounds, a series of specially filmed musical performances curated for WOW Festival UK 2021 which will stream online from 1st-21st March as part of the WOW – Women of the World Festival’s programme of In Conversations.
The programme will shine a light on women, girls and non-binary artists from around the world that use their music as a form of activism, provoking intersectional conversations around gender inequality and more. The previously announced WOW Live at the Royal Albert Hall, which was due to take place on 8th March, has been postponed due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. In response to this, WOW Sounds will bring the fun to your homes by taking over the iconic venue to record performances, using its traditional auditorium, as well as hidden hallways and secret stairwells. Other acts will be showcased from the Akshara Theatre, a concert hall in New Delhi, and artists’ living rooms all across the globe.
The line-up will include UK based artists such as sitarist shredder, composer, producer and six-time Grammy nominee Anoushka Shankar; singer-songwriter and cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson whose recent release Rise Up, featuring Akala, has become a revolutionary anthem for young Black people; genre defying artist Anaiis whose breakthrough song Nina is a liberation chant and reclamation of freedom; soul singer and all round force of nature Miss Baby Sol who will be performing a heartbreaking track called She Cries; and rising star Nubya Garcia who is changing the landscape of the UK Jazz scene, a genre historically dominated by men. International acts from across the globe will include the non-binary filipinx multi-disciplinary Kimmortal from the unceded unsurrendered traditional territories of the Coastal Salish; Voice of Baceprot a teenage Indonesian metal band rebelling against stereotypes of Islamic girls whilst fighting for equal rights to education; Indian independent artist and urban ecologist Ditty whose music uses field recordings of water women warriors who are fighting for water sanitation in their local communities; American Tik Tok star and singer Aliah Sheffield who wrote Earth is Ghetto, the worldwide anthem for lockdown;Â international superstar Fatoumata Diawara, a Malian singer, guitarist and social activist campaigning against the trafficking and sale of black migrants in Libyan slave markets; and foremost female ambassador of Gnawa music Asmaa Hamzoui and her band Bnat Timbouktou who will perform their contagious brand of evangelistic desert blues.
Miss Baby Sol, Anaiis, Anoushka Sankar, Nubya Garcia and Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s performances will be recorded at London’s Royal Albert Hall and will feature short interviews about their work with radio presenter and journalist Gemma Cairney.
Included as part of every In Conversation event in the online festival, WOW Sounds will get you head-banging, toe-tapping and dancing with joy in celebration of the resilience of women, girls and non-binary people everywhere.
WOW Sounds will also give audiences a chance to revisit some of their favourite performances from artists that performed at last year’s Global 24 Festival.  These include Tunisian singer-songwriter Emel Mathlouthi, whose protest song “Kelmti Horra” became the anthem during the 2011 Tunisian Revolution and Arab Spring; the Zimbabwean ‘Princess of Mbira’ Hope Masike; Kenyan musical and cultural firebrand Muthoni Drummer Queen and platinum-selling front woman and bassist from Noisettes Shingai.
For the first time ever, The WOW Foundation’s flagship UK festival will present events online daily from 1st-21st March. Recognising recent global events, 2021’s WOW UK programme will take a frank look at new obstacles women, girls and non-binary people now face; discussing creative solutions for change whilst celebrating amazing stories of resistance and progress. As in all WOW Festivals, it will be packed with challenging conversations but also moments of joy, spontaneity, laughter and optimism. This year’s opening session will bring together voices from across the globe to highlight the need for us to work together to build a more inclusive and sustainable post pandemic world.
Each WOW Sounds performance will be paired with one of the In Conversation events. WOW UK 2021 will include a series of In Conversations exploring themes such as sex during lockdown, radical childcare and gender equality in the tech industries. There will also be an interactive digital workshop programme including a session on decolonising songwriting with songwriters Emily Wurramara and Aine Tyrell and a mass singalong with WOW Virtual Big Sing, alongside discussion groups for those wanting to participate in conversations around specific subjects such as radical childcare and intersectionality. All events will be BSL interpreted and captioned, with tickets starting from £1 or audiences can buy a pass to watch the whole season from £25. For more information and the full WOW Festival 2021 programme, visit thewowfoundation.com or book on https://wow.ticketco.events/uk/en
The WOW Foundation is proudly supported by its Global Founding Partner Bloomberg, and Global Partner Mastercard.
