Dakar raps

It's been a while since I went to a concert, could be all of two weeks, and I was a little apprehensive about agreeing to go to a hip-hop gig when I was feeling a little emotionally delicate. But I went, reminding myself that most of my reason for being in Dakar is to be able to go out and see real people making good music.

Didier Awadi is one of Senegal's most famous rappers. He was part of the group Positive Black Soul which became internationally acclaimed in the early 90s after touring with MC Solaar and Baaba Maal, and now he's going it alone. I always maintain that while I'm interested in the kind if rap people are listening to, and the stuff rappers are talking about, I don't really like listening to it as a genre of music. But then I hear albums like African Underground: The Depths of Dakar and go to gigs where rappers deliver such nicely-timed, funny and melodic lyrics and the whole audience is going wild because the beat's good, the musicians are having fun and there's a really good energy about the combined belief in whatever this person is saying, and I think, why do I always say I don't like listening to rap music?

Didier's thing is fighting illegal immigration, fighting African governments, commemorating the death of Lumumba and Thomas Sankara, disliking the French, and making really good-sounding tunes. The audience in the open-air auditorium was one-third white to two thirds-African and I noticed there was a little discomfort, or perhaps just not knowing what to do, when 300 Africans have leapt to their feet, fists jammed in the air, shouting "George Bush is a criminal" and (to my horror, because it was funny to laugh at this till it was turned to my own lame government), "Tony Blair is a criminal". The French-bashing caused a few gasps, but I kept thinking, if I described this to anyone, this scene of sitting amongst loads of black Africans while they scream the horrors of what white people have done to them, they'd fear for my safety. In fact, I found it quite warming, because where else could that happen and then afterwards everyone's milling around and chatting without a thought of race or colour in their heads, but Senegal?



One of the best parts of the evening, apart from the 40-member church choir, the Congolese singer who made amazing melodies with small clay bottles, and the kora player who managed to make the whole classical Mandinka music thing work with the Swiss-led hardcore guitars and drums, was Xuman, pictured above, who came on and did five minutes of pure and beautiful rap, in Wolof, but in a way that even I could understand.



He managed to slate the current Senegalese government in nicely-rhyming metaphors and be witty at the same time, dropping a line in at just the right time and place so that the whole crowd went wild. It was pure genius.

Once again, music reminds me why life is good, and why life in Dakar can be so fantastic. Thanks.