Cities and Memory - remixing the world

When I first heard this recording of men gathered around a guitar, singing fragments of traditional songs and inventing lyrics on the spot, with women and children laughing in the background - it hit me: music isn’t just sound, it’s connection. It's a reminder of the timeless beauty in coming together, sharing stories, passing down traditions, and creating something meaningful in the moment.
Curious about what the singers were saying, I reached out to people from Central Africa, and the response was surprising - those improvised lyrics were built from single words in regional slang. In this kind of music-making, it often starts with one word, then another, and before you know it, a whole verse is born. It’s spontaneous, alive, and beautifully organic.
For my remix, I used the main melody of the original field recording as the foundation, blending in those improvised words as fillers. I also incorporated the traditional rhythm of Soukous - a guitar-driven genre from Congo, often referred to as Congolese rumba, which mixes Afro-Cuban folkloric influences.
Just like our ancestors sang around the fire, united by song, we too continue this tradition today - whether around a campfire or through modern technology, remixing old recordings into something new. Music is more than entertainment; it’s a bond, a message, a celebration of community, and a bridge to the past. From kings sending musicians ahead of their armies to show unity, to modern-day communities of music lovers sharing sounds across the globe - we keep passing the sound from generation to generation. And that’s what keeps us together.
Afternoon beneath a palm shelter reimagined by micca.
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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

This piece is built around a field recording from the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum of Berber beggars singing for charity.
Listening to this recording, across time, what struck me was not difference but familiarity. Themes of begging, homelessness and poverty recur in traditional songs from all cultures, spanning the centuries. Despite differences in place, language and technology, poverty, hunger, social injustice, and the vulnerability that comes with these things, remains constant.
Through my organisation in Whitby, Flash Company Arts, I frequently work with people experiencing homelessness and fragile economic circumstances. Hearing this recording, made more than 60 years ago, felt uncomfortably relevant to my daily work. These voices could belong to anyone, anywhere, right now.
The lyric “A Begging I Will Go” is borrowed from an ancient English folk song, first printed on a black-letter broadside in 1684. And still today, all over the world, people wake each morning to the same words: A begging I will go.
Nothing changes.
Beggars singing for charity reimagined by Rebecca Denniff (Subphotic).
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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"Sapeh (type of three-stringed boat lute) being played": the instrument was recorded in Sarawak by collector Leslie Bennett.
From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a small number of recordings of the musical instruments in the institution's collections being played or discussed.
Recorded by W. Leslie Bennett.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Berber (Ait Haddidu) music and soundscapes made by members of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco in 1961.
Recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009.
Recorded by Louis Sarno.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds