Make Music Matter

Author Emily Kennedy
Published On
Category Music

Published in 🔗DamnMag.

When I hang up the phone with Darcy Ataman, founder and CEO of Make Music Matter, two things he says ignite me. They light up ideas  in the way a good TedTalk leaves one or two notions to start shopping for real-estate in your mind. They rattle around a bit, eventually placing a down payment on changing something about how I view the world.

These were:

#1: “If someone is suffering on the planet, chances are you can trace it back to someone benefiting from that suffering;”

#2: “Instead of patients we call them artists…”

I’ll leave #1 to view some open houses in your brain while we jump in on #2:

Artists Instead of Patients

Make Music Mater runs a program where people affected by conflict can write and record their experiences, get recording contracts, and have their voices and stories distributed around the world. The program, Healing in Harmony, operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, and thanks to a new distribution deal with Warner Music Canada, it reaches far beyond.

“We build little recording studios and the artist—instead of patients we call them artists—they come in for a three-month period, and they work in the studio with a local producer and a local psychologist.”

Yes, a psychologist.

“The psychologist is there so when someone is writing the story for the first time, (because usually the first song they write is the first time they’ve talked about what happened to them)…the psychologist is there to guide, to make sure someone is not re-triggered or re-traumatized, or if a particular trauma is articulating itself, he or she can make notes so we can treat it.”

A music producer with a psychology pedigree himself, Ataman knows the power of music to heal. From years of experience working in conflict zones building a primary school in the Masai Mara, Kenya; supporting two HIV clinics in Kenya; and founding a scholarship program in Africa’s biggest slum. He also knows that to be a Westerner taking up space in these areas—being trusted to work with local hospitals and community groups to make the situation better—means you need to back up your claims, and the healing powers of music are not always easy to validate.

“I have to continually prove to everyone there that we’re the best use of space, regardless of if we pay rent or not, which we do. And what we’ve noted is 80 percent [of artists] get a significant reduction in PTSD after three months, which is really high, and that’s measured against a control group.”

This is where Ataman’s comment resonates: The healing is so remarkable, Ataman needs to remind people these are artists, not patients.

“Beyond that it becomes a normal writing and recording session over those few months,” he says.

The program has released seven new albums to Canada (here is one, and here is another). However, in their home countries, albums are already on heavy rotation on radio (a popular medium, with over 5 million listeners in Congo, for example) and via community concerts, which Ataman says “is really amazing for them to stand up in front of their community after they’ve been raped and express themselves like that and be proud of it—it’s a huge deal.”

Someone is Benefiting from the Suffering

Beyond encouraging North Americans to buy the albums, which support the program, Ataman explains the goal in seeing Make Music Matter artists’ songs available to a larger, international audience is not monetary. Instead, Ataman explains the goal of distribution in North America is truly in raising self worth, not net worth.

“If you’re in a conflict zone and you’ve been raped, and your family’s kicked you out because you’ve been raped, you have nothing left. But symbolically, with this work with Warner, we can say ‘you can write this song that the world’s gonna’ hear,” technically, and that does a lot to rebuild someone’s self worth.”

Another important goal in this wider reach is to contract the globe a bit—to bring people from disparate worlds a bit closer. “In a broader sense, what I want the wider world to start to understand is through these stories we’re intimately connected to those worlds,” he says.

“It’s not an us and them. If someone is suffering on the planet, chances are you can trace it back to someone benefiting from that suffering.”

His words ring true to me as a journalist, someone who always seeks to tell the story of why, what impact can I trace the news to? Why does this matter? What consequences are connected to this news?

Relating to Ataman’s work in the DRC, he gives the example of international trade of mineral resources: “In the case of the Congo, most of the conflict is fuelled by the conflict mineral trade. So all of the minerals that are in our laptops and cell phones and gaming consoles—it’s all from there. And it’s all run by rebel groups and mined by women and children that are raped on a daily basis. We benefit from that greatly because we all have a cell phone in our pocket, and there’s a direct link there.”

Now the mining-conflict impact many nations, but to give this some perspective we’ll stick the Atama’s example of the DRC. An interesting book on the subject of what’s in our iPhones is The One Device, by Brian Merchant, which unveils all of the minerals included in our phones, and shows those from the DRC include tin, tantalum and cobalt. Since publishing his book, Merchant finally did receive a reply from a spokesperson for Apple, who said:

“Apple is deeply committed to the responsible sourcing of materials in our products. We require all tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold & cobalt smelters and refiners in our supply chain to participate in independent third party audits to assess and manage risks in their own operations. We work diligently to help our smelters and refiners identify labor, human rights and environmental risks in their operations. If they are unable or unwilling to meet our standards, we terminate business relationships”

Perhaps the rumours are true that “Apple Apple wants to stop mining the Earth altogether to make your iPhone,” but, rumours by their nature have doubtful truth.

Instead, DamnMag (as always) encourages our readers to carve out some time, put on a good record, and find trusted sources on which to base your own opinions. Here are a few suggestions to get started:

Of course also check out Make Music Matter online; and find them on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to stay up to date and informed!