Fascination Africa: With BORN IN AFAR Marius Klaas succeeds in combining acoustic rock and traditional instruments of the African continent. The music is live performed by a trio band’s line-up including vocals, guitar and various kinds of drums and percussion instruments. Handmade music meets profound lyrics and is steeped by energetic rhythms and catchy guitar riffs – in doing so, catchy tunes are guaranteed.
Despite, or even because the music of BORN IN AFAR cannot be put into a certain genre and because no song sounds like the other due to the various influences, there is always a guiding thread running through the entire song repertoire. The majority of the songs deal with the connection to nature and set self-experienced stories of the African wilderness to music. However, in the lyrics sung in German and English, it is also philosophised about life and talked about socio-critical issues, whereby an unmistakable statement against racism, social injustice and xenophobia in any forms is made.
“Everything started with Disney’s The Lion King because I was already fascinated in the African continent and it’s wildlife as a child. When I became interested in more and more cultures and got to know and to love their traditional music as well, I could not await my first trip to Africa. I can now describe my three-month stay in South Africa as the most formative event of my life. Above all, the unforgettable impressions and experiences I made in the Kruger National Park finally led me to compose music that is shaped by African instruments and brings all these stories to life. In addition, it is my aim to infect more people with my fascination and thus to make my very personal contribution to the protection of the African wilderness”, explains Marius about the founding idea of BORN IN AFAR. “Since I am also very interested in the theory of evolution and the cradle of mankind, which lies in the Afar region of Ethiopia according to scientific knowledge, I wanted to incorporate these aspects in the lyrics as well. Consequently, it was only argumentative that also the name of the project has to deal with this subject in order to close the circle”