 I'm Zola Lee, I'll be your MC for this evening. Welcome to World Music Cafe from Perth, Western Australia. World Music Cafe features artists from around the world who are living in Australia. In this show, we meet some musicians with strong cultural links to Southern Africa and Indian Ocean nations. Plus, we meet the team behind the World Music Cafe social enterprise that assists people of new migrant and refugee backgrounds with skills, employment and social connection as a valued part of Australia's dynamic, culturally diverse community. So, let World Music Cafe feed your soul with stories of creative collaboration and multicultural celebration through food and music. My name is Mahmood Celeman from Mozambique, Maputo. I have so many influences of different style of music. When I started playing music, like back home, I was playing something like we call it Ussi. This kind of music, we have been just playing for the wedding, the parties, past later on because we introduced some saxophones, trumpets, like to make a big band. So we started performing at nightclubs. Then I had like a second band, which we have been playing like traditional songs, which is called Massesse from Mozambique. And after Massesse, I went to play Quasa Quasa with people from Congo. Then later on, I just tried to find my own style like that. So I love to play a lot of original music, you know. I don't like cover songs, always like playing like original one. This part of the world, it's just paradise for me. I've been touring all around the world and in Australia too, I've been touring around Australia. So I know so many states here because of music and always was a good feedback. I really appreciate to be part of this. I did enjoy, like a good audience, like a good sound, good food. Oh, amazing night. Thank you. Thank you so much. G'day everybody, I'm Olman. I want to introduce myself in our traditional ways. I always say Wilemon Ballerong Wilemon is my mum's mum's clan group. And that's from around the wheat belt, up a great southern region. And Ballerong is my mum's area. And on my dad's side of the family, I'm Wajak and Binjab. So I'm from around here and slightly to the south. And we are one of about 300 or so different First Nations peoples. It is a way of bringing peoples together. It crosses borders, it crosses boundaries. And it's a wonderful thing that we need. And all the different types of music, the styles that comes from Asia, from Africa, from here. Even though they are so different and diverse, you can still bring them together. And World Music Cafe is a great example of all of this diversity coming together. Thank you. Let's meet the World Music Cafe kitchen team, led by our amazing mentor and chef Nimrod Kuthu. Please break the feta all the way on the top. Higher, go higher, beautiful. So it spreads better. Fantastic. First of all, yeah, I came to Australia, I was 29. And I think that I fell in love with the place very quickly and I called mom and I said, I don't think I'm going to come back. Yeah, once I got my permanent residency, I think the journey of understanding the culture and the hospitality industry really started. In terms of understanding the palette of Aussies, that was a journey. Rather than call it a culture shock, I would call it a culture discovery investigation. But yeah, all in all, I love the place from the first moment and that was it. It's a love story that's still pumping in me. Yeah. My name is Hoda. I came to Australia 2010. Before I came to Australia, I am half business for Airtel. And also I am doing with a secretary with a doctor and lawyer. And now I am in kitchen. In kitchen life for different things. Here we are, an Israeli and two Lebanese women cooking together, having laughs, sometimes singing Yawa Zil Falphelu and Faridil Atrash. Sometimes listening to Israeli music and Arabic music and cooking. Hoda is a magnificent pastry maker, which I learned from. I already learned two sweets how to make. And I teach them the best of my knowledge and I think that's amazing. So it's a journey of the heart and journey of knowledge and journey of cultures coming together. And then every few weeks we meet another hundred people that I can touch through their bellies. And it's amazing. Yeah. I left Africa in 1979. I was nine years old. It was the very first of January that we arrived in Australia. When we came here, it was like the summers were so hot. Yeah, it was a completely different life. It was a very big cultural shock. I can't say that I got used to it straight away. It was a difficult experience. After moving to Australia, I always embraced my identity as a South African. I've always learnt the repertoire if you like. South African music is next to my heart because of the fact that I just love the singing and the arrangements and the big harmonies. Yeah, I'm always happy to perform for people and to share the African music and to share the music that we work on because it gets reinforced that people feel joy. They really respond to the rhythmic music and to the fact that it's so different. People are always curious. My name is Antonio. I'm living in Kuguletu. Hi guys. My name is Vish. I'm originally from Kuala Lumpur. Hi guys. I'm Kanga. I'm Wally Le. I started in Kuala Lumpur in 2008. So as me and Vish, we were teachers. So we posted in schools, teaching schools, different stuff. We teach camboots, we teach solo dance, we teach pansola, we teach marimba. And we play 19 African instruments. The music love came from the woodpeck. Where you leave your parents, your sisters, your neighbours, what they listen. Our mission is to share the music of South Africa to the world. We would love to share our dream with everyone that's travelling all over the world. Hello. My name is Grace Babe and I am from Seychelles Island in the Indian Ocean. I'm Creole. Creole is the culture, the people. And it's also the language that we speak. I sing in the language of Creole. Even though I grew up here in Perth and I have been back quite a few times. I've been quite proactive and active in the Seychelles community here in Perth. So I started performing and playing bass and singing in the Seychelles community here in Perth. And I suppose that's why I'm so into preserving the culture. To take that to a wider audience, the wider Australian audience. I think it's really important. Even though I've created my own style Afro Creole, which is a blend of different genres, Afro beat, you know, pop, a bit of reggae, the roots, the foundation is still there and you can hear it in my music and that's really important. Performing this style of music internationally and touring, it's a great opportunity for me to actually introduce my audience about where I come from and these are the rhythms that we play, even though you can hear the different influences. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of where I come from and it's really important to share that with people. It's naturally an esophantic and we can create our own kind of genre, our own style with the Indian Ocean Island Fusion and it's a great opportunity to do that. So, love world music, call it what you like, you know. I think it's really important to stay authentic and true to your sound wherever you come from. Café also provides music workshops to share world music skills and connect cultures in the Perth community. I got into Marimba because a band from quite a long time ago got a study grant to go over to Zimbabwe and Southern Africa to learn about traditional music of the Shawna people and part of that was Marimbas because we were playing the Marimbas in Australia and so we couldn't let go of the experiences that we had in Zimbabwe in terms of how the music and how they played affected their own people let alone how it affected us. And then I was on a mission because they taught us also how to make and tune the wood and so I went about buying my wood, spending my money, my allowance on buying the wood and then of course I'm from South Africa so I had my relative in Johannesburg and of course that wood comes from there, from South Africa as well so I went to all the places to mill the wood, get the right sizes for the bass, Marimba, this and that and I brought the wood over to Australia and that was the beginning of the ensemble but unfortunately 2007 maybe that my studio burnt down and I lost all of that wood and I decided to build another ensemble and this time I made it out of Australian wood somehow I have the words to be able to get them to feel what it is that originally inspired me and to get them to love the sound of the ensemble and get them to love the sound of the different chords and how it goes in context when you're telling the story about music going from your home chord to the next one, next one I want to make it accessible to all people because I think that when you're playing music it's a holistic experience not only your rhythmic skills, your listening skills your cooperation skills, your chordal skills I mean the list goes on but the ensemble is a completely unique experience look I feel humbled because you know I've got so much hope and love for living and being in Australia I know how difficult it was to transition out of various phases of the acceptance of people and so on and so forth so it was very passionate to my heart people can come together and people are organised enough and believe in it enough despite all of the obstacles that they are driven to bring our community together and that is what means the most to me is because I want to live in my community I don't want to be on the side of it I want to be part of it I want to feel responsible for contributing and this gives you that opportunity it gives so many people the opportunity and at the same time it helps the awareness of different cultures and the acceptance of different cultures so it's really humbling and really moves me and I couldn't give more of my support to this This is a social enterprise meaning that it's a business that's trading for good we started this as part of the Multicultural Enterprise Development Project Hello everyone, thanks for coming my name is Merzia and it's almost one year that I'm working in World Music Cafe well working in World Music Cafe is wonderful and almost the people whom I'm working with are from different kind of background I work as a customer service I work as a front-of-house, as an emcee so I did many things so I learned many things and I have many experiences now and I'm very happy and thank you My name is Guy I came here in 2014 World Music Cafe has been great for me like English is my second language that is some challenges for me so not as outgoing as I am they have lots of build up my skills like before they have like training they actually bring me a lot because they have not only the cafe like not only this event they actually have a lot of different events so I can see a lot of different things and also work with them as like the marketing so like some social media things like survey analysis or this stuff and also lots of I face a lot of different kind of customers and very diverse they are from different countries even the musicians they are from all over the world so I met a lot of them and they are so nice to me so actually I feel a lot of confidence to me I came to Australia in 2013 I am from West Africa I am from Ghana when I first came to Australia I was like I was looking for a place sort of like a place to fit in with World Music Cafe I feel like I belong to a community so when you have a community you feel like you belong somewhere like you know so that's what World Music Cafe has done for me I think World Music Cafe it's such an opportunity to to see the talent we have here here in Perth, Australia we've got people who who come from all parts of the world and make Australia and Perth their home and the opportunity to bring those individuals together with such talent, passion and connection to culture and then present and share that with the rest of us it's a magical evening it's really powerful to bring so many people together from so many diverse backgrounds and watch them actually melt together and bring something so beautiful it's really powerful this is another way of communicating across culture and unifying people bringing people together and gives us the spirit of what it is to be really alive you see the diversity in the multiculturalism not just in the musicians but in the MC it's there in the food and it's there in the appreciation that you get from the crowd that's why everyone comes here for and it's what they get it's a really beautiful scene thank you very much we met each other right here in World Music Cafe so that's the most important thing and that's the reason that's the opportunity we can meet each other so then we create something and as it happened we started playing and wow we never stopped it's incredible what it can happen given the opportunity to mix with other musicians other cultures and things yes I've just joined and I found it very rich because I've been learning a lot about different instruments so it's rediscovering my own song and it's great it's great and sharing this with other people also appreciated so I think it's a nice sharing experience and very rich although although Paris is not such a big city yet we would have never met each other if it wasn't for the World Cafe the performance went fabulous better than I expected love to live on this planet we all love to share it if we can share it in the spirit of harmony that's what it shows us everything's going to be alright everyone's going to be taking care of and all of that elusive happiness that we sometimes see we actually find the answer