By Gwen Kallio
The Afro News Vancouver : Among the 60-odd groups and artists performing at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, July 15-17 at Jericho Beach Park, one can expect to see a pretty amazing range of music and culture on the festival’s 8 weekend stages. There’s everything from blues and bluegrass to electronically-inspired hybrids. As always at this unique event, you may go to see a familiar name and come away loving a music form or an artist you didn’t even know. They may hail from Haiti and Colombia, from the UK and Kyrgyzstan, the US – or from our own back yard. And some, like southern Africa’s Freshlyground and Sudan ex-patriot Emmanuel Jal, are justly considered major stars on the international stage while performing very different kinds of music. They are also risk-taking artists who have stories to tell and important messages to share, unafraid to speak their truth.Freshlyground is undeniably one of the best of the new South African music groups – seen, and heard, by at least a billion people. With Shakira, they not only performed and recorded the official theme song for the World Cup (Waka Waka – This Time for Africa), but it was a major hit internationally. The band, though, were already stars in South Africa and beyond. They’ve opened the South African Parliament and played in Germany with Miriam Makeba among a raft of other high-profile appearances.