Peter Gabriel, Billy Bragg and Edward Sharpe are among the musicians involved in the The Voice Project’s First Album to Fund FM Radio Peace Broadcasts in DR Congo.
The idea is a very good one: A "Cover Chain" with artists covering each others song in a long chain of music that actually dates back three years. The reason is to raise money to: "to transmit “Come Home” songs and messages of peace and reconciliation in the current combat zones such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. The broadcasts have been extremely effective at encouraging safe surrenders of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters, many of whom were abducted as children and forced to fight, lied to by commanders that they would be never be welcome in their home communities if they ever tried to surrender".
It sounds like something out of a movie on a small Pacific Island where Japanese soldiers are still fighting WW2 twenty years on. This is a little complicated so I will rely on the Press release: "The project started when co-founder Hunter Heaney sat down with a group of women and rape survivors in the small town of Kitgum, in Northern Uganda. They were singing peace songs to forgive those soldiers who had wronged them. “They explained to me how many who fought would escape, but hide in the bush afraid to come home, and the songs were passed by word of mouth and on the radio to let them know they were forgiven, that they could come back.”
Forgiveness is a god like attribute. It is in the nature of life that an eye for an eye is an infinite progression. The only way to stop it is thru forgiveness and to hear of it being conducted by one people to another is very moving, very important. If anger is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person, forgiveness is like feeding your enemy and finding yourself fully nourished. " Awareness and funds donated at the website have been used to broadcast these peace messages in the current combat theatre and continue to bring home soldiers and the collaboration between the Gulu Widows Choir and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros which appears on the album gained airplay in Uganda as well. The proceeds from album sales will do the same, to even further broaden the reach, deep into the jungle, of the voices of peace and the “Dwog Paco” songs."
The album is available on Spotify by the way. On first listen it is pretty good but not more.