In 2024 Big Love and Nyege Nyege Festival in Uganda launched an exciting, year-long cultural exchange, under the title Mapenzi Makubwa (meaning ‘Big Love’ in Swahili). Now you can experience some of East Africa’s cutting edge musical and visual artists in Wales!
We were honoured to be one of only 23 out of 1,400 applications selected by the British Council to receive funding, enabling us to collaborate and showcase contemporary Welsh and East African artists to new audiences.
Nyege Nyege festival
The first part of the collaboration took place in November last year, when a team of creatives selected by Big Love traveled to Uganda to participate in the internationally recognised music and arts festival Nyege Nyege.
The team included Big Love’s head of design, Dave Baker, artist and DJ Spike Clark, and set/decor designer Ella Schofield-Lake from Jumbo Productions.
Now approaching its 10th year, Nyege Nyege takes place in a truly spectacular setting at the source of the River Nile, and acts as a showcase for a range of contemporary African and global talent.
Over the years, Nyege Nyege has provided a space for underrepresented artists and music scenes from across the continent, and initiated training programmes in music journalism, stage management and event production.
The Big Love team spent two weeks working alongside artists from East Africa, sharing ideas and techniques, and transforming two areas of the festival using locally-sourced materials. The team were also privileged to meet with creatives displaced by the violence in Sudan and the DRC.
Now it’s the turn of Nyege Nyege to select a sample of Ugandan talent to create artworks and perform at Big Love, bringing a taste of cutting edge East African culture to Wales.
Reagan Kandole
Ugandan artist Reagan Kandole has been with us on site for two weeks, working to produce a fantastic metalwork sculpture for the site out of scrap metal, assisted by UK artist Spike.
Back in Uganda, Reagan works with ECOaction, a non profit organisation that creates income and livelihood opportunities for marginalised youth and women through innovative use of waste. Check out some of Reagan’s amazing work on ECOaction’s Instagram feed, including a life-size elephant made of old crash helmets!
PÖ
With one foot in electronic dance music and the other in radical sound experiments and a very personal use of the voice, Ghanaian/French producer and vocalist PÖ unfolds a vast and versatile artistic universe.
PÖ challenges your dancing shoes with afrocentric sets from Luanda to Kingston, Accra to Bahia, weaving together forgotten connections on the dancefloor and unlocking bodies for ultimate freedom.
She intertwines the colors of dancehall and heavy Brazilian funk with high speed caribbean madness and footwork, occasionally giving moments of relief before diving right back into some raging New Orleans bounce music.
R3ign Drops
R3ign Drops, a prominent figure in the East African club scene will be bringing her high-energy Afro sound to Big Love. As co-founder of the Afro Femme Collective Dope Gal, she has been instrumental in amplifying marginalized voices from the African continent and celebrating its rich musical diversity.
Her DJ sets are a reflection of this commitment, blending genres to create a vibrant and eclectic sound that resonates with audiences worldwide.
Catu Diosis
Catu Diosis is a free spirited, energetic, forward moving Ugandan producer, rapper & Dj. Her music is flavorful, highly danceable, always an afrocentric blend of global bass music, taking you from Luanda to Sao Paulo, from Kampala to Bamako in a second.
Catu has played countless festivals, clubs and stages globally including CTM festival in panorama bar Berlin, Fusion festival, Eurockéennes, Kaleidoscope in kenya, Nyege Nyege, boiler room and is Locus festival in Italy, Circulart in Colombia and many more.
Together with R3ign Drops she performs as the DJ Duo Black Sistarz and they co-founded Dope Gal as a platform for women to collaborate through creative projects.
Reena Tara
A fifth Nyege Nyege artist was due to join us at Big Love: their designer Reena. Sadly Reena passed away unexpectedly in June, aged 27, just days before she was due to fly out to the UK.
Naturally the Nyege Nyege family were heartbroken, as were the Big Love team, who had come to consider Reena a true friend. Reena was such a warm, energetic, creative force, and is dearly missed by all that knew her.
Reagan will be incorporating a butterfly into one of his pieces at Big Love to commemorate Reena.
Make sure not to miss the Nyege Nyege takeover of the Fire Engine on Sunday night!
World in Wales
Big Love will be building on this collaborative experience and developing new international relationships as we launch our new World in Wales project. We also hope to see some of you at Nyege Nyege in Uganda later this year – you won’t regret the experience!
Nyege Nyege 10th edition takes place in November 2025, tickets available on their website.
Big Love to the British Council
Mapenzi Makubwa is funded by the British Council’s International Collaboration Grants, run to support the creation of new cultural collaborations between UK artists, arts professionals and organisations and their peers around the world.
We want to thank Karla and the British Council ICG team for their support in helping us realise this project. It’s been a genuinely incredible experience for everyone involved, creating learning and development opportunities, that really will enrich creative communities in both Wales and Uganda.