An Afrobeat anthem for the 21st-century nomad

Watch this mind-boggling stop-motion animation created for “Ar Don Go” — a new Afrobeat anthem for those of us who call the whole world home.

Whether by necessity or choice, living far from home in an adopted country presents challenges, opportunities — and a whole bag of mixed emotions. Both prosthetics inventor and songwriter David Moinina Sengeh and artist Joey Ellis are true trailblazers, living and working far from their childhood homes. Today, they launch a vibrant and pulsating collaboration celebrating the joys and poignancy of life between cultures — always on the go, and always growing.

“Ar Don Go” — which means “I have gone” or “Watch me go” in the Sierra Leonean Krio language — was written by Sengeh and brought to life by Ellis’s incredibly detailed stop-motion animation.

Watch the new video, then read on to learn more about how this extraordinary piece came together!

David, what prompted you to write this song?

I wrote “Ar Don Go” to inspire people — especially young people — who have, for whatever reason, left their primary home — to reimagine what “home” means. The song is part of an album I am working on that touches on themes that connect my childhood home Sierra Leone and my current home, Boston, where I live and work at MIT creating state-of-the-art, affordable prosthetics for amputees. They say, of course, that home is where the heart is — but for me, home has also encompassed the experiences of progress, global travel, and upward mobility.

Joey, how does the song resonate with you?

“Ar Don Go” addresses the act of returning home as an adult after many years away. I connected with it because of my own history of moving away from Auburn, New York to attend university in Beijing. After 10 years, I’ve continued to live and work extensively in Asia, and now live in China, where I will perpetually be a foreigner. So this song speaks to the thoughts, emotions and interactions I experience when I return to the United States for brief moments of time. It expresses both an insider and outsider point of view — and that space in between, where you realize that you can be both.

Tell us about some of the objects that go by — it’s very quick! What are they, and how and where did you gather them?

As a sculptor, I like taking random bits of information, combining it with others and then seeing what comes of it. When you’re using cultural iconography that you yourself don’t understand and play with just the visual connection you have with it, you create something that gains multiple meanings to a variety of people.

Most of the imagery used in this video are from the thousands of scans I’ve taken over the last 10 years, but I would say that this film is made up of 75 percent book covers, collected from all over the world during my travels. The majority are from Doha, Beirut, Juarez, Istanbul, Jingdezhen, Delhi and Kathmandu. I don’t always buy the objects: I travel with a huge flatbed scanner in my suitcase, which makes up half of what I carry and a third of my allowed luggage weight!

David, you’re known as a scientist and innovator. Do science and music work in concert in your life?

Science and arts have always been on a continuum for me. I tend to work on projects that add positive value to me and the lives of others: music, poetry, fashion, design, science and invention are all a part of my whole being.

As a young kid growing up in Bo Town, Sierra Leone, I participated in rap competitions with my older brothers. Meanwhile, I was on science quiz teams representing my school. I’d shadow my uncle at a hospital performing a surgery on a patient in an afternoon, then attend a play at the public town hall with my mom in the evening.

Today, I simultaneously write rap lyrics while my scientific simulations run in another window on my computer. I think this actually expands my ability to come up with nerdy/silly flows that work. Plus, I have fun doing it all!

This video has been a case of deep and very personal collaboration. How has it affected you personally and artistically?

David: I enjoy good music and good art. I also love experimenting. If you took a look at Afrobeat music videos, it would be difficult to find one that’s stop-motion. So I wanted something different, especially to expose other Sierra Leonean youth and artists to what is possible. I love the bold colors Joey uses in his art, and I was drawn to his own personal story as it related to mine and the song itself. I knew that to do this video, he would have to learn a whole new set of skills, but I didn’t mind how long it would take — I was all in. I admired his openness about learning those new skills, especially from local designers in Nepal and China. I loved that we both equally owned the project, and entered new frontiers together. I am very proud of this work.

Joey: My work for a long time has been about large-scale collaboration. I’ve worked and trained a hundred Chinese furniture movers to move life sized ice sculptures in the Beijing summer. I’ve constructed 20-meter-tall ceramic tree installations with taxi drivers and vegetable sellers. I have always worked big, and my motto has always been “Make work that is unattainable by one but attainable by many.”

This piece couldn’t be more different. I went through 10,000 images alone, all photographed by me, edited them. I became so intimate with this video that it truly represents a large version of how I view colors and construct meaning as an artist. Making something so personal with such intensity feels incredibly empowering, but also extremely vulnerable.

I have to confess it was hard. It took a thousand times longer than I had ever imagined it would: there were multiple revisions and weeks’ worth of work thrown out because my taste had either changed or grown. But at the same time, it was magic how I could animate these inanimate objects and make them tell a story, and fascinating connecting my life to David’s words in such a visual, deconstructed (and reconstructed) way. And we connected on a level of friendship I’ve not experienced before. I could not have done it without him. We both see something completely different in it, and I think that is what makes it special.

The TED Fellows program hand-picks young innovators from around the world to raise international awareness of their work and maximize their impact.