When people hear the word heritage, they often picture something kept: an object behind glass, a costume in an archive, a ceremony described in a book. That kind of preservation matters. But it isn't how most heritage survives.
Heritage survives because people keep doing it. A grandmother teaches a song at a naming ceremony. A family insists on the proper order of an engagement. A drummer passes a rhythm to a younger player, who changes it slightly and passes it on. Much of African culture lives this way, outside museums, galleries and formal institutions, in homes, ceremonies, family gatherings and community celebrations.
This shapes how I understand my role as a producer. If heritage is something people do, then my job isn't to display it. It is to create the conditions in which people can practise it in public, and in which an audience can take part rather than only watch.
Three things follow from that.
The first is that the people who carry a tradition are its authorities, not its illustrations. A traditional singer, a ceremony leader or an elder brings knowledge that no production team can replace. They should shape how their tradition is presented, and they should keep ownership of the songs and stories they share. A producer gives the evening its structure. The tradition-bearers give it its truth.
The second is that a programme needs room inside it. A production that is planned to the last second leaves no space for anyone to offer something of their own. I build programmes with a clear frame, a running order and a shape from beginning to end, and then leave open moments within it, where participants can bring a song or a story that was never rehearsed. Those moments are often where the heritage is most alive.
The third is that tradition is not fixed. Every living practice has changed over time, and it is still changing. Presenting heritage honestly means showing it in the present tense: traditional dress beside contemporary styling, chant beside contemporary poetry, an old rhythm in the hands of a young drummer. The connection between the two is the point, not a compromise.
This matters especially in diaspora communities. In the UK, many African families carry their traditions far from the places those traditions grew. The songs are still known and the ceremonies are still held, but often privately, with few chances to share them in public, and few ways for children growing up here to see them valued. Public cultural work can change that. It can tell a community that what it carries belongs on Britain's stages, and invite everyone else in.
Heritage does not survive simply because we remember it. It survives because people keep practising it. My work is to make room for that practice, and to bring audiences close enough to feel it.
