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In Senegal, a French-speaking nation of 15 million people in the far west of Africa, Afua Hirsch discovers a country with a cultural influence far beyond its size, with dynamic film, fashion and hip-hop scenes that have fed off historic power struggles and culture clashes, both between ancient empires and against French colonisers. She traces the story of Leopold Senghor, a poet who became the father of Senegalese independence and redefined what Africa is. She explores cities with exuberant murals and street culture that respond to the past, and she meets internationally acclaimed choreographer Germaine Acogny, griot musician Diabel Cissokho and hip-hop legend DJ Awadi.
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00:03Africa. One of the fastest growing regions in the world. The youngest continent where
00:12six in every ten people are under 25. With hundreds of different ethnicities and some
00:192,000 languages, Africa is the most culturally diverse place on earth.
00:26I'm Afua Hirsch. I've been lucky enough to work across Africa as a journalist. And now
00:34I'm exploring Africa's history through its extraordinary creativity and culture. I'm
00:41looking at how three very different countries, Ethiopia, Senegal and Kenya, emerged from the
00:49shadow of empire in the 20th century, and are thriving in the 21st.
00:57These African countries are reasserting their identity, gaining new recognition for their
01:02role as cultural powerhouses. I'm interested in how that's happened and how the struggles
01:09for liberation in the past have helped shape today's African renaissance.
01:17In this episode, Senegal, a French-speaking country of 15 million people in the far west
01:24of Africa. It has a cultural influence far beyond its size, with a dynamic film, fashion
01:32and hip-hop scene. Here, the struggles for liberation from the slave trade, and from French rule in the
01:4420th century, created heroes and leaders who redefined what Africa is.
01:57A country of exuberant murals and street culture responding to the past.
02:07So many people forgot their past, where they come from. The griot is here to tell you who
02:16you are.
02:19When I was growing up in 1980s Britain, Africa was depicted as a dark continent, without hope.
02:26Trying to make sense of my own African heritage, I was determined to see the other side to the
02:31story, and I came here to Senegal to find it. And what I found was a country that's had its
02:37problems, its suffering and oppression. But to be here is to experience the resilience of
02:43an African people's culture. In Senegal, art gives expression to the suffering of the past, but it does
02:50much more than that. It's the very thing that's powering Senegal's future.
03:24This story starts with a statement piece. Standing high above Senegal's capital, Dakar, at the very
03:33western tip of Africa, is a striking 49-metre sculpture.
03:41This is the African Renaissance Monument. It was unveiled in 2010 to commemorate Senegal's 50 years of
03:49independence. Despite a bombastic style, reminiscent perhaps more of North Korea than West Africa, it's an
03:56imposing and assertive work. It depicts a strong African family. A mother, father and child. A symbol of an
04:05independent continent striding forth into its future. This is a monument to Africans all over the continent and in the
04:14diaspora. A signal to the world that the African Renaissance has arrived, with Senegal at its centre. This is an
04:22African Statue of Liberty.
04:27To understand why it's been erected here, what makes Senegal so confident about its place in African culture, we have
04:35to
04:35understand Senegal's struggle for liberation and further back, in earlier centuries, how the country was formed in the clash of
04:44empires.
05:02Long before Europeans arrived in Senegal, great empires fought bitterly to control the West African coastline.
05:13The Mali Empire flourished here in the early Middle Ages, rich from trade in copper, ivory, salt and gold.
05:21Mali was reputed to be the source of almost half of the old world's gold.
05:28Gradually, during the 14th century, the Malians were superseded by the Wolof Empire, whose people today make up two-fifths
05:35of
05:35Senegal's population, the largest single ethnic groups.
05:42In its quest for power, the Wolof Empire established trading networks across West Africa, along which people, ideas and
05:51crucially, materials flowed. Above all, gold.
06:00Wollof Metalsmiths turned the working of this precious material into an art form, creating intricate jewellery for the Empire's new
06:08aristocrats.
06:16Kadeem Gay still fashions gold in the same way as generations of his ancestors before him.
06:27Kadeem Gay still fashions gold in the same way as generations of the West Africa.
06:46Kadeem Gay still fashions gold in the same way as generations of the West Africa.
07:04And what is in this cup?
07:06L'acide.
07:07Kadeem Gay still fashions gold in Mexico?
07:08C'est pour le nettoyer, ou pour...
07:09C'est pour maintenir la couleur de l'ore.
07:13Can you tell me the history of gold in this part of West Africa?
07:17Si on revient en arrière, c'est les histoires des anciens rois, on attend.
07:27C'est avec l'ore qu'il… qu'ils échangeaient.
07:31C'est comme l'or qu'
07:32This was the money for the change.
07:35If you want to marry a woman, you have gold.
07:40Because women, their first love is gold.
07:44It continues until now?
07:45Until now.
08:02Oh, it's beautiful.
08:07C'est bien?
08:08C'est bien.
08:08Merci.
08:09C'est joli tellement. Merci beaucoup.
08:11OK.
08:14What a beautiful, beautiful piece of jewellery.
08:17And a Pan-African one, too.
08:22The medieval West African empires have left a powerful artistic legacy,
08:27a reminder that Africa was not savage, as the Europeans claimed,
08:31when they first arrived in the 15th century.
08:34West Africa had its own complex societies
08:38in which art and innovation flourished.
08:41It's shocking that we know so little about this,
08:45although perhaps not surprising.
08:47It was a truth the first Europeans here needed to suppress
08:51to justify their brutal and ruthless power grab.
09:15when Europeans came to this West African coastline,
09:18they weren't really interested in engaging with this rich history of tradition, culture and art.
09:23They saw it as a place that could make them rich,
09:26and they did that by taking things, gold, land, and, for hundreds of years, enslaved people.
09:39This is Gorée Island, just two miles off the coast of modern-day Dakar,
09:44and only half a mile long.
09:47Gorée was first settled by the Portuguese as far back as the mid-15th century,
09:52but then the Dutch, English, and finally the French took their turns.
10:06The House of Slaves was built in the 18th century,
10:09for a wealthy French slave-trading family.
10:13The architecture is immediately unsettling.
10:17Above, airy verandas.
10:19Below, grim cells.
10:28This isn't the only place on the West African coast
10:31where slaves were kept in dark, overcrowded rooms like this would have been
10:36before being shipped across the Atlantic.
10:38But every time I come to one of these sites, I find it chilling to the core.
10:45It's impossible not to stand in a dungeon like this
10:49and imagine the squalor, the overcrowding, the violence, the death,
10:54the uncertainty of being sent across the ocean to a lifetime of enslavement.
11:01Gorée was just one of dozens of similar bases along the West African coast,
11:05from which slavery continued until it was finally abolished here in 1848.
11:12There's ongoing debate about how many people actually left via Gorée Island,
11:18but this site has become a potent symbol of the transatlantic slave trade as a whole
11:23and a place of pilgrimage for Africans and the diaspora.
11:30I think it's so important that this island and the house of slaves that still stands here
11:35has been preserved as a World Heritage Site.
11:37And it's good to see people coming here and engaging with that.
11:41At the same time, I can't help but feel a bit uneasy at the ways tourists have this experience.
11:47Seeing Gorée Island as a nice day out, a bit of shopping, some fun,
11:52there's a frivolity that I can't imagine at other equivalent sites of past atrocities,
11:58like concentration camps or scenes of genocide.
12:08Competing European powers clawed their way along the west coast of Africa,
12:12inflicting cruelty upon the people here.
12:17But it was the French who succeeded in claiming Senegal as theirs.
12:21And it's the French whose legacy is most felt today.
12:39This is Saint-Louis.
12:41In 1659, the French established a trading base here at the mouth of the Senegal River.
12:51For centuries, the city was the epicentre of the whole world.
12:54French-African empire, the base from which they spread into the Sahara.
13:03The French legacy lingers in Senegal today, in language, architecture,
13:08but also in the people themselves.
13:16France turned Saint-Louis into a grand experiment,
13:20seeding a hybrid Creole culture, like that of Havana,
13:24and New Orleans.
13:25And it created a new cast who would bolster their rule.
13:30French traders had children with local African women,
13:33creating a new mixed-race population called the Métis.
13:37The Métis became an elite merchant class,
13:40wielding significant power within the colonial structure.
13:44Saint-Louis is still renowned for its Métis culture.
13:48Métis women, called Signars, became known for their extravagant gold jewellery
13:53and French-style clothes, which they wore in procession to church
13:57in their adopted Catholic faith.
13:59They got married to descendants!
13:59How's it going?
14:00How's it going?
14:01How's it going?
14:04How's it going?
14:06Today, their descendants continue to show off that exuberant heritage.
14:12We are also seniors.
14:15That's why we are more or less cousins.
14:18We married a lot between them,
14:20because they were quite many in the 19th century
14:24to marry each other, to keep their financial strength.
14:28It was really something...
14:30We don't understand why it was like that,
14:32but we understand now,
14:33because it was the women who lived at the time.
14:36It was the matriarchal.
14:39Yes.
14:39Do you always wear gold with this traditional village?
14:44Yes.
14:46From the time to the time,
14:47the Sidiens wore gold often,
14:50because they were rich.
14:51They were great customers,
14:54who kept the roof.
14:58We drew this procession through Takusanundar
15:01which was around the city.
15:03That's how it was done at the old time.
15:05And many of our stylists and stylists
15:07have made the signars
15:09to allow us to re-tremper in the tradition.
15:14This is the first one.
15:42The signars are so marked the spirit of the Sidiens.
15:51because in addition to that they were well in their pews, they were also well in the
15:54world of the French, so they were really well.
16:00It was first women who were very powerful, they had a carure there and they were a lot
16:07of help, they were in the social social, they were in a lot of things.
16:10So when we pass, everyone will take a photo, everyone will take a photo, everyone will
16:15take a photo, everyone will take a photo, everyone will take a photo, everyone will take a photo.
16:25How did having European heritage make a difference to their status and also how other Africans
16:31saw them?
16:32St Louis is the first European ville in Africa, they were able to ally the two civilizations.
16:37Yes, it didn't bother at the time because people were much more open.
17:03In some ways, I want to smile along with these Sinyar women. On the face of it, there seems
17:09to be an empowering multicultural story of mixed-race people unusually respected, of black women
17:17wielding economic power at a time in history when that was not common anywhere in the world.
17:23On the other hand, they were complicit in the colonial system, profiting from it, even buying
17:29and owning their own slaves. And it's a complicated history.
17:35St Louis, with its Matisse overlords, was Senegal's most important city until 1902, when power transferred
17:44to Dakar in the south. There, the French faced a major challenge.
18:11Sufi Islam had taken root in West Africa in the 11th century. But in the 19th century, it
18:19became a formidable rival for power. Sufi preachers saw the potential for revolution. Organizations
18:26known as Brotherhoods sprang up across the country, radicalizing followers against French rule.
18:35This is Tuba, site of the Great Mosque of the Merid Brotherhood.
18:47Laid out in classic Islamic style, it was begun in 1887 and only finished in 1963. A vast projection
18:56of religious power. This is an absolutely amazing mosque. And it's huge. One of the biggest in Africa. It can
19:03hold
19:04around 7,000 worshippers. Its sheer scale feels like a rebuke to French Catholicism. It has five minarets. The tallest
19:15looks like a lighthouse, calling the faithful to prayer. An Islamic version of Notre Dame.
19:22Tuba Mosque is emblematic of the failure of the French to fully colonize Senegal. Even the way they
19:28practice their faith here shows that this is a culture that has always done things its own
19:33way. That has always fought back. The man behind the building of the mosque was
19:41Sheikh Amadou Bamba. Bamba inspired his supporters to non-violent protest and passive resistance against
19:49French rule. Like the British against Gandhi in India, the French struggled to contain it.
19:57This is the only surviving picture of Bamba, taken by the French authorities in 1913. Bamba wears a
20:05flowing white robe and his face is almost entirely covered. It's a cryptic, almost mythic image.
20:18The French exiled Bamba twice, then allowed him back, but tried to keep him quiet. But it was too late.
20:26Bamba's image had in itself become a powerful symbol of resistance. It still dauged all over the
20:35Senegal today.
20:56Like the iconography of Che Guevara or Lord Kitchener, the power of the image has transcended the real
21:04person it's meant to represent.
21:16Here in Senegal, we do what we do. We love what we do. We love what we do. We love
21:21the graffiti.
21:22Because in Europe, we do vandalism on trains. And here in Senegal, we do it on social media.
21:30When you see the image of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, what does it do to you? What does it mean to
21:34you?
21:35When we see the image of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, it means that it is the image of the Islam.
21:41Islam in Senegal and throughout the world.
21:46Islam in Senegal and throughout the world.
21:54Members of the Baifal sect, particularly devout and vocal followers of Bamba within the
22:00Moreed Brotherhood, come to celebrate the new mural of their hero.
22:07It's hard to overstate how much a part of everyday life Bamba's legacy is here in
22:12Senegal.
22:13And painting his image is a way for people to connect with him.
22:16It's also a blessing for those who walk past and see it, and a way of asking for divine
22:21help.
22:47Automatically, you can see that this guy is a number of people.
23:24The French Empire failed to win hearts and minds in its campaign against Bamba and Islam.
23:31By the time he died in 1926, many Senegalese revered him as a prophet and a saint.
23:39French power was weakening, and what would now push it to the brink was war.
23:52200,000 young men from French West Africa were enlisted to fight for France during the First
23:58World War.
24:0030,000 were killed.
24:03And those who survived experienced vile racism and abuse.
24:10When Senegalese troops occupied the Rhineland area of Germany, the Nazis stoked fear about
24:17the mixing of white women with black African soldiers.
24:20The children born from these relationships, labelled the Rhineland bastards, were forcibly
24:26sterilised after the Nazis took power in Germany.
24:30Worse was to follow.
24:34During World War II, many Senegalese troops captured fighting for France were summarily executed
24:40by the SS, simply because they were black.
24:44France's defeat in 1940, and the Vichy government's collaboration with the Nazis, also proved to
24:50Senegalese soldiers that the French Empire was rotten.
25:00In November 1944, when Senegalese troops protested against conditions they were kept in at Camp
25:07Tiaroy, near Dakar, things turned violent.
25:10At least 35 Senegalese were killed by white French troops.
25:16The massacre galvanised the generation.
25:19And in particular, the life of one 21-year-old Senegalese soldier called Usman Semben.
25:27Semben is hailed today as the father of African film.
25:32Originally a novelist, he turned to cinema to get his message across when he realised it's
25:38far greater reach and power for Africans.
25:40The Waggoner, made in 1963, was the first ever film made by a black African.
25:49But Semben's most famous and controversial film came two decades later, when he revisited
25:56the trauma of the Tiaroy massacre.
25:59The film was released in 1988 in Senegal, but banned for ten years in France.
26:05Clarence Delgado was Usman Semben's assistant director, who worked with him on most of his films,
26:12including Camp de Tiaroy.
26:14The tournage was very difficult, the atmosphere was very heavy for many things.
26:22We had asked the aid of the French army, they refused to help us.
26:29But it doesn't mean that they were coming to camp to visit us.
26:32I stopped them to enter into camp, because they didn't enter into camp.
26:39They were curious to know what they were doing and what they were saying to them.
26:44And it was an event that they didn't want to talk about it.
26:50Because it was an event that was a shame of the part of the French army,
26:55at the time of the liberation.
26:59And it ended up in a massacre.
27:23They did everything to censure this film, because they didn't want to talk about their past.
27:28And that's what Semben wanted to denounce.
27:33Semben had a fascinating life.
27:35He was a fisherman, he was in the army, he then became a writer and a film director.
27:40What was he like as a person, and what was he like to work with?
27:43It's not easy.
27:46He was atypical.
27:47And he had a good character.
27:50He had a lot of tension.
27:51I told him that he had a lot of tension.
27:53In the end of the day, he broke the plomb.
27:56He took his chair, he was left.
27:57I tried to catch him, he refused.
28:01And I said, okay, guys, we cut, we roll, and the day is finished.
28:05And I found Semben at the time.
28:08And I said, we were there.
28:09I asked him what's going on.
28:11He said, no, I had a lot of tension.
28:13And then he said, listen, this film, if we have to finish it, we're going to do it.
28:20We're going to cry.
28:21Two big men, he and me, we're going to cry.
28:27For me, it's one of the most beautiful films of Semben, of Semben Ousmane,
28:30that he could have done.
28:35Ousmane Semben was not the only former soldier transformed by war.
28:39The Tiroi massacre and the French cover-up helped turn another towards nationalist politics,
28:47leading Senegal to independence.
28:52Leopold Senghor is one of the most intriguing and significant figures in 20th century African history.
29:00He was the architect of Senegal's peaceful breakaway from French rule and his country's first president in 1960.
29:09An unusual politician for his time, he was not a strong man or an ideologue, but a debonair poet.
29:17I was educated in the traditions of our ancestors, and also in the pagan traditions.
29:27In such a way, I was in a mixed, noble and pagan society at the same time.
29:37Both a Francophile intellectual and a man steeped in Senegalese culture,
29:42neither a pro-Western capitalist nor a hardline socialist.
29:46Perhaps the secret of Senghor's success was that he was something of a go-between, operating in different cultures.
29:53He wanted to rejuvenate Senegal and assert its independence after years of French colonial rule,
30:00not by displays of force, but by displays of art and culture.
30:05As the name of the country, if the neck is golden, the city is golden,
30:14first place is golden, and the city is golden, and thy second place is golden.
30:28The most important in the country is golden.
30:30The national unity of in Senegalese culture,
30:33is the central and the city is golden, and the city is golden.
30:33it's golden and the city is golden.
30:36Senghor was from Joal Fadut, south of Dakar,
30:40a member of a minority ethnic group known as the Sereh,
30:44Christians within a country that's 95% Muslim.
30:58Senghor never lost touch with his roots.
31:00Even as president, he came back regularly to visit his home village.
31:08Many of these women sang praise songs for him
31:11and do so again today in his honour at the village baobab tree.
31:38There's the father of this village and the father of this nation,
31:42and this is how they used to show their respect to him,
31:45and they still show their respect to him this way from here.
31:47Let's sing a song.
32:01Let's sing a song.
32:02Let's sing a song.
32:04Let's sing a song!
32:07Let's sing a song.
32:09Let's sing a song.
32:13When we sing, meet our thoughts.
32:16And whenever we sing, meet the soul guitar,
32:17Let's sing that song,
32:17My father was a kid and he was a kid.
32:23He was a kid and was a kid.
32:31He was a kid and was a kid.
32:31He didn't get sick.
32:33His parents and their children were a kid.
32:47Senghor is a part of the story of Senghor,
32:49and he is a part of the story of Senghor.
32:57You really feel connected to the African story here in this village.
33:02And even though he was an intellectual, a writer, a politician,
33:05he was absolutely grounded in his spiritual heritage
33:08as a proud African and a member of this community.
33:14Senghor wanted to project a confident new vision of African culture.
33:20His philosophy centred on an idea he called negritude.
33:25Negritude rejected Western labels of tribal art as primitive
33:30and envisaged African identity being rebuilt through pride in traditional culture.
33:38So after independence, the poet president pumped state money into the arts.
33:45He showed off his country's progress to the world
33:48with the first world festival of Negro arts.
33:53Let joy fill the streets.
33:58Gather round, gather round.
34:01Let young and old join in.
34:04A festival is born.
34:06For three weeks in April 1966,
34:10Dakar was a lie with thousands of people attending performances and exhibitions.
34:16Senghor opened the festival.
34:19Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie mixed with African-American jazz pioneer Duke Ellington.
34:26There were steel drum musicians from the Caribbean.
34:28And traditional dancers from Benin were on the same bill as contemporary dancers from New York.
34:38Negritude came of age in the 1960s when African decolonization was at its height.
34:44And the consciousness raised by the American civil rights movement
34:47was sweeping across the world.
34:53So this was an extraordinary celebration for Africans and the diaspora.
35:11Senghor didn't let up.
35:12In the 1970s, Negritude was a policy that affected every aspect of Senegalese culture.
35:43This is the École des Sables, an African dance school.
35:47This is the École des Sables, an African dance school.
35:50This is Senghor's push for Negritude.
35:53This school is the successor to the Mudra Afrique, founded by Senghor in 1977.
36:00He wanted to find out what Negritude would look like in dance.
36:08And he put Senegal's most influential dancer and choreographer, Germaine Aconi, in charge.
36:16The result was a unique fusion of traditional African movement in music with European forms.
36:22The best of both worlds.
36:46In the 1970s, the president Senghor wanted to make the Senghor in the Senghor in the Grèce of Africa.
36:51There was literature, the plastic arts.
36:54There were always traditional and patrimonial dances, but they wanted to make a dance that was modern.
37:01Can you tell me more about what the philosophy of Mudra Afrique was and what the legacy of that school
37:07has been?
37:08Mudra, it means gesture.
37:09It means that even if we don't speak the same language, by the gesture, we can understand ourselves.
37:15It means that Maurice Béjar, for a dancer,
37:18it needed to be an actor, to have all the possibilities possible for the body and the voice to be
37:26an excellent dancer.
37:27But the essential thing was to make a modern African dance dance,
37:33modern dance, which was enjoyed by everyone.
37:36And then, we succeeded, and by my dance technique, we succeeded.
37:57What is it about African art and African dance that captivates the world?
38:03What is the spirit here that makes our art so powerful?
38:07Well, I think it's this energy and this force of the Earth that we have.
38:15Because this energy of the Earth, this force,
38:19whether it's slow or fast, it's always alive.
38:24And Africa is a force.
38:26And here, it must be that Africans also know and be proud of what they are.
38:34I found meeting Jermaine truly inspiring.
38:38A lot of people talk about negritude, but she's taken those ideas and put them into practice,
38:44creating new forms of artistic self-expression.
38:47And for me, that's a really powerful reminder of the fact that art can change the way we think
38:54about ourselves and our identities, and it can change the way we imagine the future.
39:06Not everyone in Senegal saw negritude as that future.
39:10While Senghor tried to redefine Senegal's culture,
39:13many ordinary Senegalese found his state-sponsored vision too prescriptive and top-down.
39:21They accused him of using the arts to inflate his own status and power.
39:27And they responded with an explosion of creativity from below.
39:33With art that expressed the voice of the people and of the street.
39:39The legacy can be seen across the country.
39:42The very walls of Dakar are evidence of people challenging prevailing ideas
39:47and expressing their cultural freedom.
39:50Murals began appearing in Senegal in huge numbers in the 1980s.
39:54As part of a movement called set setal, from the Wolof to clean up.
39:59This was a mass act of urban renewal by largely untrained artists,
40:04fed up with the decay of Senegal's cities.
40:07But this was also about metaphorically cleansing Senegal's cities
40:10with positive social messages of renewal and change.
40:19Dakar's streets have become a canvas on which Senegal's people
40:23tell their own story in their own way.
40:29And it's not just on the walls.
40:37Spontaneous expression erupts from the people,
40:40asserting their identity and pride in their own past.
40:45Let's go.
41:17This dance is performed by the Bojola people, migrants to the city from southern Senegal.
41:25They're an ethnic group who believe that when the dancers wear masks, they're transformed into spirits.
41:31Let's go.
41:45Let's go.
41:51Let's go.
41:55Let's go.
41:59Let's go.
42:01Let's go.
42:05Let's go.
42:07Let's go.
42:20Let's go.
42:26Let's go.
42:27Let's go.
42:27Let's go.
42:28Let's go.
42:36Let's go.
42:50mask ceremonies are cathartic and healing
42:54away from minority people to assert control over an ever-changing world
43:21the freedom and confidence you see on Senegal streets has deep roots
43:31to understand the country's strong sense of national identity and story
43:36we have to understand a cast of people here known as griots
43:43for centuries griots have been guardians of Senegal's popular culture
43:48storytellers of song music and dance a living repository of a community's
43:54traditions
44:17many griots like Jabell Sisoko play the kora a traditional 21 string harp
44:38the kora is a messenger we are a historian and we keep story and we tell a story
44:52so many people forgot their past where they come from and the griot always have this with them
45:01the griot is here to tell you who you are
45:05how did you become a griot?
45:07I become a griot because my dad is a griot
45:12so that's how he become griot
45:13how did your dad become a griot?
45:15he's become a griot because his dad is a griot
45:18you know
45:19so that means my granddad also used to be griot
45:23his dad used to be griot
45:25so he's been passed to generation to generation
45:28do you know how many generations of your family are griot?
45:32yeah because I can say we are 200
45:34200 generations?
45:35from my family
45:36from the past even now
45:38griot is here for everybody
45:40to share and then to make peace
45:42not even in the community but to the country
45:45you know
45:46he's the one whose two people has problems
45:49the griot is always there
45:51what's it like being a full-time griot?
45:54full-time griot is very nice
45:56honestly
45:57so full-time griot I feel like you talk a lot
46:00you play a lot
46:01you know
46:02you share a lot
46:04so I'm lucky to be griot
46:06honestly
46:07what kind of things do you sing about?
46:10we and the society
46:12living with everybody
46:13living with rich
46:15living with poor
46:16living with happy
46:18living with non-happy
46:19you take everywhere
46:21to share with everybody
46:23and also to explain everybody's story
46:26for example
46:27for me now
46:28I had a very big inspiration today
46:31talking to you
46:31I can write that
46:33as a griot
46:47I'm not but
46:49I didn't even know
46:50he didn't even know
46:53my funeral
46:54he said
46:57in the country
46:57I'm not too young
46:59I'm not too young
47:06gave up
47:06so I don't know
47:08that she's a real
47:08and that she's a real
47:09so that she just
47:09couldn't be
47:09not too hard
47:09so that she was not too young
47:12that was gorgeous what were you thinking about I was singing you see what she's around us today
47:18I knew I was blushing you know I was thinking what she's around us today I'm very happy
47:24to welcome my friends here come from England to come and see the griots
47:33griots are just part of everyday life here as musicians storytellers giving a voice
47:40to Senegalese people and that voice has been a very stabilizing force in
47:45Senegal as eras regimes and individual politicians have come and gone griots
47:50have always been there some people even say it's because of griots that Senegal
47:55has been such a stable country griots are the voice of the street and in the 1980s
48:03and 90s they paved the way for a new wave of music when American hip-hop came to
48:09Senegal in a big way
48:24Senegal was uniquely placed to understand and absorb hip-hop rappers communicating stories about
48:31poverty and dislocation speaking truth to power these were griots in all but name
48:39the result was a new rush of creativity
48:49Senegal's first major hip-hop group was positive black soul they borrowed the style musical rhythms and progressive messaging of
48:58American hip-hop and mapped it onto
49:00Senegal's Senegal's social issues as a teenager I loved listening to them
49:10the group was co-founded by Didier Awadi the father of Senegalese hip-hop 30 years on he's still making
49:18music
49:19this is where we do editing because we do a lot of film my first Atari
49:24wow that's amazing
49:26yeah and oh and it's from the positive black soul days
49:30yeah the first thing we wanted to have is our own equipment in order to be independent
49:36you know I listen to positive black soul in those days I can't believe it was so long ago
49:41welcome in the studio
49:42oh this is where the magic happens
49:44oh I don't know if it's magic but this is where we do my office
49:52what are you doing in here
49:53you know Mami Wata
49:54yeah Mami Wata
49:55yeah we have a version of Mami Wata
49:57oh we have some high life
49:59oh
49:59beat you know
50:00I love high life
50:01can we hear a tiny bit
50:06it's him singing
50:13now we have the chorus
50:16this is gorgeous
50:17and I will put my verse on it
50:22let me do it
50:24yeah
50:24okay
50:25oh okay
50:26great
50:26yeah
50:28okay
50:29now I could literally listen to this
50:30all day
50:31oh
50:33oh
50:34oh
50:34oh
50:35oh
50:35oh
50:36oh
50:39oh
50:40oh
50:40oh
50:40oh
50:49oh
51:03oh
51:04oh
51:04oh
51:05oh
51:07oh
51:07oh
51:08oh
51:1811
51:19the voice of the voiceless and very quickly we got accepted for me my
51:26mission is to to to to bring back consciousness and give them the keys of
51:33life and the keys of life today you have to be strong in your mind and your soul
51:38and you need to know who you are and what's the role of hip-hop in asking
51:44those questions 60% of our population are young you know so the youth they all
51:50listen to hip-hop so if you want to talk to them and make them understand
51:54something rapid if you come in with philosophy your history you don't have
52:00time for it when the patient is seriously ill and he don't know that he's in you
52:05know you need to find another way to give him the medicine hip-hop is so big in
52:12Senegal that it's a major feature of elections in 2019 each politician had a
52:18rapper alongside them at campaign events
52:26there's even a news channel with nightly broadcasts wrapped instead of being
52:30spoken for 40 years we had one party ruling we decided no we don't want them
52:41anymore so we start telling the people the youth you have to go and vote if you
52:46want to change it if we if we all go and vote it will change and this is what
52:51happened we took a system we you know the army with the media then everything which
52:58would we took them out you need to use your voice and the the power that you
53:03have to change things
53:10a century ago the French branded Dakar the Paris of Africa for its style and
53:16sophistication but it was hip-hop in the 1990s that put Dakar on the world map as
53:25a place of new ideas and inspiration in music dance and fashion the Dakar Biennale and the Dakar
53:35fashion week draw international artists designers and buyers many young Senegalese
53:48expressed their identity and creativity today through fashion
54:02new new is one of Dakar's top young designers finding success by combining
54:08traditional Senegalese styles with international ideas
54:12international ideas so the world of African designers
54:14who need to take water here are theses
54:16international ideas and the world ofеты, so how we will reproduce this
54:18same schéma
54:19that we have done earlier
54:21they took the crazy-looking
54:22that you trace the circuit until then keep the sides
54:25that you take to the left
54:30the collection叫做
54:31The name of the heritage
54:32so the heritage of the heritage in Africa
54:37it is important in all
54:38In the case for African designers, we need to research on this heritage of African paint.
54:44It's for us, designers, to be able to come out, to be able to explain,
54:49to be able to tell, through clothes, this heritage of the paint,
54:53and other materials in general that we find in Africa.
54:58African fashion is special.
55:00It's special because, through the fashion, we remain ourselves.
55:09It's a country that advances with its young people.
55:14This last year, there's a young generation, in any case,
55:18who believe that Africa will be done with Africans.
55:33In the 21st century, the world is looking at African core.
55:40And Senegal is leading the way as a top destination.
55:48Particularly for the African diaspora, from Europe, the Caribbean, and America.
55:52The very descendants of those who were shipped out centuries ago, from places like Goree Island.
56:04Now they're coming back to reconnect with their African heritage.
56:09Some even make Senegal their home.
56:12The place for them to fulfill a dream of repatriation.
56:15Back to Africa.
56:19As somebody who's lived in America, do you feel that people in the diaspora understand what it's really like living
56:27in an African country?
56:28Do you think they know what a country like Senegal is about?
56:30No.
56:31A lot of people that I've talked to, they didn't even know Senegal.
56:36Fortunately for a lot of our media, they only show starving children, right?
56:42Starving children, and they show the poverty, or they'll hear about, like, police corruption and things like that.
56:47Those are the images that our media in the United States portrays of Africa, and it's not true.
56:54You get the weirdest questions from people, you know, they ask you, you know, do you have to shower outside?
56:58You know, you got, does your house have a roof, or is it like hay on the top?
57:02You know, and so that's when we were like, okay, we're going to just have to take a lot of
57:06photos and videos and show people.
57:09RJ Mahdi moved from Georgia, USA, five years ago, to live in Senegal.
57:14He's set up a business, helping other African Americans to do the same.
57:19We want to have a positive impact on the economic future of not just Senegal or West Africa, but the
57:25continent.
57:26We want to create home, and we want it to be here for our children, and I think that's what
57:30we've got to look forward to right now.
57:32Gigi, you have been here a few weeks.
57:34Yes.
57:35So, of this group, you're the most recent arrival.
57:37I am the new one.
57:38Can you see this becoming a more permanent home for you?
57:41I definitely see the potential for this becoming home for me.
57:45I'm slowly falling in love.
57:47We're returning, and we're finding that parts of us never left.
57:51And we're not in a place where we even feel foreign.
57:54These are cousins.
57:55They're just cousins that you haven't met yet.
58:02Senegal has emerged from its centuries of history as a country that's stable, tolerant, and welcoming, with vibrant art and
58:09culture.
58:13A place where people are used to expressing themselves and their politics.
58:18Where clashes of ideas have fed a unique creativity.
58:25In the next episode, Kenya.
58:28It's history and culture driven by fundamental questions about the land.
58:42That concludes next Monday at nine.
58:46Political motives underpin religious ideas as a way of control.
58:50Africa's great civilizations is next.
58:53Africa's席 of cruelty.毛EL.
58:55Hawk Cliff Experience.
58:57Have fun in our
59:06incredibly基本 and
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