The amazing albino musicians mistreated and kept hidden away because of their skin colour
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For decades, the oppressed albino men and women of Tanzania's remote Ukerewe Island have been hidden away from the outside world.
Now, thanks to an amazing record producer who offered some of them a lifeline, they can call themselves live music performers who have wowed massive crowds in Britain.
Theirs is an inspirational tale that could change things forever for hundreds like them who are persecuted, ridiculed, and killed.
At their debit live show at the WOMAD music festival in Wiltshire last weekend, the Tanzania Albinism Collective was one of the big surprises.
No one knew what to expect from the four performers – three men and one woman – who had only arrived in the UK two days before.
(Image: TIM ANDERSON)
This was their first ever trip outside Ukerewe, a four-hour ferry ride from mainland Tanzania, and it would have been normal to be overwhelmed.
Instead these musical novices charmed the thousand-strong audience in a show unlike anything any had witnessed before, and are unlikely to see again.
What happened on stage was an outpouring of anger and pent-up emotion from a group kept behind closed doors because of their skin colour.
In Tanzania, albinos are regarded as an embarrassment by their own families.
For generations, they have suffered appalling abuse and lived with the permanent fear of being killed because of a genetic condition which gives them pale skin, hair and eyes.
(Image: TIM ANDERSON)
Albinos are hunted and persecuted because of a belief common across East Africa that their body parts can transmit magical powers.
Under the influence of witch doctors, people cast albinos aside as demons within their own villages, and even in their own family homes.
Ukerewe, an island stranded in giant Lake Victoria, was the place where Tanzanians with albino children dumped their unwanted offspring.
So the arrival of some of the members of the Tanzania Albinism Collective from Ukerewe at WOMAD in Wiltshire and also in London was a remarkable achievement.
After a life time of exclusion, not only have they left the island, they boarded an aircraft to Britain, went in lifts and escalators for the first time, and saw sights they would never believe existed.
(Image: TIM ANDERSON)
One of them is singer Amidu Didascalie Lucas, 24.
Speaking to me exclusively before the group’s groundbreaking performance at the world music festival, Amidu said: “We are treated differently because of our condition, because we look different.
“Growing up was so difficult because we were made to realise we were not accepted. The other children would not play with me when I was young. I had to play alone, and of course that meant that I had no self-confidence at all.
“We would not be allowed to go outside by our own families. We were all discriminated against and mistreated from a very young age. I remember that when we had visitors my parents would tell me to go in, out of the way, so I wasn’t seen.
“I was an embarrassment to them. They would never travel anywhere with me because they didn’t want anyone to know they had a child with albinism.
“What happened when I was a child definitely affected my behaviour as an adult. The stigma of being an albino never goes away; it is there for the whole of your life. Nothing changes; we are never treated as equal members of society.
(Image: TIM ANDERSON)
“When I got older and start wanting to meet girls I was always rejected by their families. Most people with albinism on Ukerewe have never left the island. There were some who were kept so apart from everyone else that they didn’t even realise there were other people who looked like them.”
Amidu and the other members of the group were brought together by Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan, who travelled to Ukerewe to discover these people.
He also wanted to establish a musical project in the hope of perhaps recording an album, giving them a voice for the first time.
What struck Ian upon his arrival is that the albinos were so marginalised that they were even denied water from the well.
The aim of the Tanzania Albinism Collective was to integrate the albinos by allowing them to sing about their experiences.
But most spoke in whispers, avoided eye contact, and were unaccustomed to dancing. They were even forbidden from singing in church.
Seeing them at WOMAD last week was a revelation, like watching children performing for their families.
They were more uninhibited than any other artist on the bill.
The 18 albinos who took part in the Tanzania Albinism Collective were never musicians beforehand.
But to Ian it felt as though they had been waiting for this opportunity to express themselves after years behind closed doors.
“This means so much to me,” Amidu continued. “To be applauded by an audience here in Britain after always being rejected is incredible.
“I never thought I would leave the island, let alone come to London and perform at a big concert. This has changed my life.”