Local Jazz maestro Natalie Rungan has collaborated musically with Ghanaian artist Victor Dey Jr, their resulting album, African Breyani, speaks to what Africans can achieve, in various spheres, when they come together wholeheartedly.
There are some moments in life that only make sense years later…
I first met Ghanaian pianist and composer Victor Dey Jr in 2018 at the National Youth Jazz Festival in Makhanda (then Grahamstown). He was performing with Marcus Wyatt, and I remember that concert with such clarity. It was the first time that a song had gripped me in the way his music did. I described it as haunting, but that word has never been enough. What I experienced felt deeper than admiration. It was as though something in the music was calling to something in me, and that feeling stayed with me for days and, as it turned out, for years after that festival ended.
I tried to contact Victor afterwards in the hope that we might collaborate, but nothing came of it. Years passed.
In 2024, Victor returned to South Africa with the GH Jazz Collective to perform at the National Youth Jazz Festival. I was conducting the National Schools Jazz Band that year, and our schedules left very little time for conversation. But in a brief moment between rehearsals, I mentioned the song I had heard in 2018 and said that I still hoped we might find a way to work together.
