Music

Nationality: Switzerland
Residency location: TBD
Partner organization: TBD

Basil has been working as a musician for more than twenty years. He started out as a rapper and over the course of the years, has become a musician and lyricist without any musical borders. He has played with all types of musicians from different countries and music styles. In the last 20 years, he has released over 18 records and played more than 1000 shows.

Currently, he is a part of different formations and touring through Switzerland and abroad. Always open-minded and looking for new musical experiments and forms of expression, he is often working with a mixture of music and art. In 2014, he did a residency in South Africa supported by Pro Helvetia. In three months, he has completed a whole record together with a rap group from Cape Town. Having built a connection with the South African art and music scene, he is still working on new projects with peers there.

Two years ago, he has written a one-hour conceptional album about his empty apartment and the emptiness in human minds. During his residency in China, he’d like to continue researching this idea of emptiness both inside and around us, and even go one step further to write about abandoned cities and landscapes which are very rare to find in Switzerland. He has visited similar places in the USA, Eastern Europe and Africa. Then he became fascinated by the book “Ghost Cities of China” by Wade Shepard, and Chinese cities, for instance, ORDOS, seem to be the perfect subject to explore. He would like to collect inspiration and turn them into lyrics, rhythm and music. Besides this plan, he would like to work together with local musicians, rappers and artists, regardless of music style or language, for he believes that music and art are universal.

More about Anliker Basil