The original story of this opera is the story of political asylum in an African country, a son who travels the world but cannot return to his homeland to see his mother. The son writes a letter to his mother, but it's not a regular letter, it's a poem. There are many documents and stories, written by Westerners, about the current situation and history of Africa. It is no exaggeration to say that the knowledge and information about Africa presented by people in other parts of the world is mostly fabricated. However, I decided to make this opera a work in which Africans talk about themselves from their own perspective, although it has never been particularly easy. This is because there are few people, not only in Africa but everywhere in general, who can speak about themselves in their own words, rather than the enumeration of words that they have heard elsewhere, or the quotations of their predecessors. In addition, Africa has language issues. The language of the former colonial suzerain is still dominant as the official language. Can Africans really speak for themselves in an enforced language formed in a completely different climate and land? The first question is this. Language has been uniquely cultivated in every climate and land, over countless periods of time, and is inseparably linked to the lifestyles and unique cultures connected to our ancestors. Thus, it is the foundation of the consciousness. In Asian countries, resistance to language colonization was great, and Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia have made their languages official, after independence from France, but the situation is different in African countries. In that sense, it was a blessing that I met Moyi MBOURANGON. As the well known known rapper Martial Pa'nucci, he is very conscious of languages and says that he always thinks in his mother tongue, Lingala and translates it into French himself. At the same time, he is extremely open about translating his texts into other African languages and happily approves of it. You can imagine how grateful I am to have his attitude within my project, a multilingual opera, which is challenging but appropriate for reflecting the situation in West Africa. The story is his semi-autobiographical novel, which is still incomplete. Over a year ago, he told me that it was almost finished, but I haven't yet received notice of its completion. He told me the other day that it would be published by the end of 2021, but I'm not sure, because as yet, that's just a plan. Moyi is a rapper, a very modern profession, but he writes everything by hand. At the moment, only chapters 1 and 2 of the entire 12 are typed, and in my possession, but by the beginning of 2023, when we're aiming to complete the opera, we should have it in its finished form!

One of my purposes at that time was to have everyone in my band get an Artist Card, and for that I had to produce and publish a CD album, officially registered by the local copyright association called the BBDA. Maboudou already had his Artist Card, but Ibrahim and Boureima did not, so they didn't get any copyright or neighbouring rights distribution, and no matter how good a musician they are, they were socially not recognized as musicians. I was planning, in particular, to make all the production processes in Burkina Faso, from recording to mastering the CD, designing to printing the cover and registering, and I did it, but it was a lot harder than I thought. Up until now, I have been working mainly in the Japanese classical music field, so unconsciously I expected the way I work, the pace, the degree of perfection and the level, etc... but nothing went as well as I expected here. The stress was unimaginable. BBDA is an institution equivalent to JASRAC in Japan. To register a CD album, all we had to do was create the documents required by them and fill out the forms, but we had to go back and forth countless times between their office and our home, which were quite far from each other. It took us three months to complete the whole process. The terms used in these kinds of documents are difficult to understand, even in our mother tongue, but since they are written in French, the official language, they are generally not easily understood by Burkina Faso people. The staff didn't explain it at all, they just told us to read the French description in the hallway and write it ourselves. All text on the form had to be handwritten with a ballpoint pen, and if you make a slight mistake, you were not allowed to use correction fluid or make corrections by drawing lines, and so had to start over. There are about ten pages of forms. Maboudou, who is the most fluent in reading and writing French in our band, finally submitted it after a total of 5 rewrites. Then we waited. However, since we had not been contacted for a long while after submission, we went to the office to inquire, and were told that the person in charge of the submission had lost the forms! This is just one example, and there were many other things that made me astonished and lost for words. My band's balaphonist, Boureima, has never attended school and can't even write his name. Even so, I had to ask him to sign by himself, but when I saw his signature, it looked like an illustration of an earthworm. There are many people like Boureima in Burkina Faso. If they can't read and write, they cannot even open a bank account. I noticed that Boureima felt uncomfortable just by stepping into a place like the BBDA. By the way, the people of Burkina Faso are generally warm and polite, but some of the people who work in cutting-edge workplaces such as the BBDA, banks, and airline offices look down on others and have a surprisingly arrogant attitude. Even if such people express terrible words, others rarely speak back, and instead just follow as instructed, this being the general attitude of the mild Burkina Faso people.

In fact, Maboudou was very upset when he heard the news and was stunned for a while. Maboudou and Boureima are cousins of the same age. In this scenario, African society does not call each other's mother an "aunt" but a "mother" also. She is not only considered mother by title, but also by consciousness and relationship, so it's no wonder Maboudou was so upset also. Two days later, we followed Boureima to the funeral in his hometown, but no one at that time imagined an even more disastrous death would impact the family. Patrick Hauguel, director of the Institut Françaisde Ouagadougou, showed interest in the opera project and offered me the opportunity to premiere it at the institute at the end of April. I promised to prepare the premiere of the first Act of the opera by then. I met him on the introduction of the Consul of the Japanese Embassy, he talked with me, and listened to our CD, checked my other operas on YouTube, and made this decision. In Japan, things are never arranged like this. I can't say enough with words how effective the efficiency of this case, of "meeting in January and deciding on a performance three months later", will promote artistic activities. All creative activities are the same as childbirth in the sense of producing. If you feel fetal movement, don't spend your time mischievously. Some works of art take years, sometimes decades, or even hundreds of years to complete. But it's not like accumulating the time you're making, just sitting down and devising a plan, and spending time writing a proposal. "Think while doing" "Try and fix" is art. Because art is a living thing! (In the case of Goethe-Institute director Carolin Christgau, it was also as quick as this. Hervé suggested Carolin organise a concert for us at a dinner in December, she immediately decided at the dinner table to make it in January.) Patrick also said "operas are unfamiliar locally and your music is good, but it's not popular music, so it's going to be difficult to attract people to come", so he hurriedly set up a three-day festival and positioned the opera premiere as part of that. Institut Français offered me 600 €. The subsidy that had been applied to the Japan Kakehashi Foundation was also adopted, and we were moving smoothly forward to the premiere of Act 1! One morning, Maboudou, who was talking to his younger brother in his hometown on the phone, told me with tremendous anxiety, "My younger brother's appearance is strange". I also felt that it was not a trivial matter, and immediately realised Maboudou's desire to visit his younger brother. As usual, he was moneyless and I knew that he couldn't procure the bus fare, so I gave him money and said, "Go to him soon," and he left on the same day. It's still a nightmare that Issa, the 19-year-old, the most talented and handsome young man in Lycée, died within just 10 days. Here, I won't go into the details of this matter, but I'm still not convinced that no matter how Africa is, life can be so fragile. Maboudou returned to Ouagadougou eight days later. I thought that it would not be easy for us to prepare for Act 1 in the little time we had left, with such a sense of loss. I was writing a new song, and the rehearsal started before Maboudou returned to his hometown, but for some reason this new song, which combines the Ryukyu scale and West African rhythms, seems to be more difficult than ever for them to practice. I think Moyi's text was also difficult. Also I had asked Maboudou for a new song, but was worried whether or not he could complete it. In fact, after the performance at the Goethe Institute, I was building a new house on the land belonging to Maboudou. It was a local, standard, extremely simple house, so it took just over a week to build, and the total cost was around 1000€. Until then, I had rented a house, but every time we rehearsed there, I was in trouble because of complaints from the neighbourhood. We installed solar panels on the roof of the new house to secure a power source for the electric piano (the area has not yet received electricity or water). It was good that we had an environment where we could rehearse without worrying. Since there was a new song this time, everyone agreed on the condition that I pay a total of 7 rehearsal fees and a separate performance fee, and if they cannot remember the song and need more than seven rehearsals, they would not be eligible for further payment. After all, we continued to rehearse in the morning and evening for more than a month every day except Saturday and Sunday, so more than 50 times. Around this time, I was short of money. After practicing, I used to invite everyone to a beer, but I switched to a local drink called Zomkoom. 3 beers + 1 Cola costs 3.5 €, but 4 Zomkoom costs 0.3 €, a big difference. Maboudou's relative, comedian Lamissa and Hervé's friend and dancer Nina came from France to participate in Act 1 of the opera. I really wanted to have one opera singer from Germany, one of the few black opera singers, Owen Metsileng from South Africa. When he came to Germany on a contract with the Lübeck Opera House, the lockdown began and he could not return, instead spending lonely days far away from his family. When he sang as the protagonist of an opera in October 2020 at the Lübeck Theatre, I went to see it with Hervé. His singing was great, but when I actually spoke with him, I was deeply moved by the fact that he was devoting himself to this Western art while still retaining the African soul. In the end, I had to give up on inviting him to Burkina Faso, not only because of finances, but also because it was extremely difficult to take care of issues such as a visa, corona test, and quarantine in such a short period of time.