Artistic Explanation

Do you find the choice of soundtrack music for the game unusual? You are right! It is unusual. But the choice of African music was made on purpose, mainly for two reasons: 

First, not many people associate space travel and the exploration of our universe with anything related to Africa. This is often so, because many of us are biased to rather associate these topics with classical music (for example Odyssey 2001), or sometimes western music (Serenity, Firefly), or bespoke ‘futuristic‘ music (original Star Trek series). The Kaiyō Mission wants to break this sub-conscious bias.

Second, like the Kaiyo Mission itself is representing humanity‘s joint strive to push the boundaries of our knowledge and explore together the limits of our universe as we understand it; the selected music stands for reaching out across boundaries and combining the best that we as humanity have to offer, widening opportunities and collaborative thinking, as well as increasing awareness in space technology. It is an expression of hope, joy and what we can achieve if we work together as humanity. 

The Bristol-based Afro-Jazz group Hélélé kindly allowed us to use some of their music to lend our game the positive and hopeful message of peace it conveys. The music is inspired by the rhythms of the Bantu Forest of Cameroon with influences from Assiko, Makossa and Bikutsi. ‘Alphonse Daudet Touna formed Hélélé to ‘enrich and share his music with the world.’ He started at an early age playing the drums at traditional village ceremonies where he developed his talent as a composer and performer. The vocals of the group are mostly sung in the tribal language ‘Bassa’, sending messages of peace and reconciliation. Hélélé ’s line-up includes Alphonse Daudet Touna on vocals, Balafon, and percussion, Dino Christodoulou on tenor saxophone, Neil Smith on lead guitar, Ron Phelan on bass and Greg White on drums’ (https//helele.org). Please do check out their music and story here.