Download Harmony Festival's Water of Life Album featuring Damian Marley.
Download the Harmony Festival 2008 Water of Life album including exclusive and rare tracks from Damian Marley, Heavyweight Dub Champion vs. FreQ Nasty, David Starfire feat. Ooah, BLVD, SoulEye, and KJ Denhert, plus Cheb i Sabbah and Jef Stott. Available only at Giveback. Net proceeds go to benefit The World Family's "Water of Life" campaign.
The issue:
- Ethiopia is currently experiencing a drought and severe food crisis
- The villagers of Gara Dima, Ethiopia are seasonal farmers. They have no irrigation and can only grow food when it rains, but rains throughout Ethiopia this year were insufficient and most of the village's crops were destroyed.
- Gara Dima's now-barren farms could produce mangoes, papayas, and many kinds of vegetables if they were irrigated by the water from the nearby Awash River. This irrigation could end Gira Dima's food crisis and save its children from dying of malnutrition.
The project:
The "Water of Life" action campaign goal is to raise $8,000 - enough money to plan and excavate an irrigation system, and build a tunnel from the Awash River which will bring life-giving water to the farms of Gara Dima.
Please help!
We interviewed Resurrector from Heavyweight Dub Champion, David Starfire and FreQ Nasty to get their perspectives on this action campaign and why they got involved:
Giveback: Can you tell your fans more about this project?
FreQ Nasty: Sure. The larger project is really ambitious in its scope to help the people of Gara Dima (Ethiopia). It aims to provide many of the basic things they need to survive and prosper in a place that deals with problems such as lack of water, disease and malnutrition on a daily basis. The goal we are working toward with the Harmony Festival on this project is to raise $8,000 to build the village an irrigation system, which will enable them to grow food in drought times like they are experiencing right now.
Resurrector: Our collaboration with Darin (FreQ Nasty) is an example of musical power in action, as a means to bring life and abundance to a people and a region. With Heavyweight Dub Champion, we focus our musical energies on bringing life and abundance to the human spirit from within. We use the collective harmony of unifying musical forces to reach inside and touch any sort of dormant potential and ignite a spark that leads to the ultimate liberation of the spirit. The power of music can generate real momentum that leads to action in all sorts of ways and contributing our musical energy and experience to the "Water of Life" is just a very small step towards using it as a positive Earth-changing force.
Giveback: Why do you resonate with this particular issue?
Resurrector: To be honest, I am still learning about it myself. We were approached to create music that will help foster a greater abundance for life in Gara Dima, Ethiopia. Any project that promotes sustainable living is something that we as an artistic collective are interested in supporting wherever possible. Actually, Gara Dima is also close to home for us. One of our vocalists, Stero-Lion, lives part time in Shashemene, Ethiopia where he and his uncle perform music (sometimes for the descendants of Haile Sellasie) and, is a figure of spiritual liberation in the local community. I would hope that the energy we collectively channel to Gara Dima will spread to other communities and strengthen Ethiopia as a whole.
FreQ Nasty: I resonate with it from a macro perspective really. The idea that artists can use their music and art to help create positive change in the world is one that I feel really strongly about right now. At this point in time music is selling less than it ever has, yet remains a powerful cultural force and reaches a wider and more diverse spectrum of people than it ever has. As the means of digital distribution are essentially free, and the monetary worth of any given track moves toward zero, the idea of bringing music's powerful cultural force to bear on the lives of real peoples to help them in a tangible way is little short of a miracle. To help the people of Gara Dima in Ethiopia by creating music in a studio in California brings down barriers for the artist, the fans, and the community itself, benefitting us all.
Please help!
Giveback: What do you hope that donating this track will achieve?
David Starfire: I hope that it will raise awareness about the necessities of basic supplies that are needed across the globe. Sometimes people in more privileged areas forget that there are people struggling with basic survival needs such as food and water. It would be great that this would start discussions about other projects like this one!
Resurrector: We hope that donating this track will not only achieve the specific goals of the "Water of Life" campaign but, also serve as an example of how music can be used as a liberating force for positive change. The more that artists donate their creative energies to projects such as this, the more people will see and hear music being used in a proactive manner. We believe it is important for artists to use their talents for any and all means that help to free the collective human experience from a manipulated reality.
Giveback: What can your fans do right now ?
David Starfire: They can donate directly on the Giveback.net site, download the tracks and spread the word!
Resurrector: Please look into the "Water of Life" campaign and spread the word about this particular example of how we as a community can manifest change for some of our brothers and sisters in need. It is important for the fans to support these types of actions so more and more artists will continue to put forth this kind of energy. It is a collective effort that is necessary if we are to alter the direction of the planet.
You can help.
Get the album and support The World Family Ethiopian Orphans and Medical Care's "Water of Life" action campaign. Provide life-giving water to the farms of Gara Dima.
Join Harmony Festival artists in supporting this important cause. Download the album and help bring the water of life to Gara Dima.
