... is not responsible for genocide. It is not responsible for dictators. It is not responsible for fanaticism. It is not responsible for the corruption, prevarication. It is not responsible for waste and pollution…
The tragedy of Africa is that the African man has never really entered history. The African peasant who for centuries has lived according to the seasons, whose ideal is to be in harmony with nature, has known only the eternal renewal of time via the endless repetition of the same actions and the same words. In this mentality, where everything always starts over again, there is no place for human adventure, nor for any idea of progress.
Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, speaking in Dakar on July 26th 2007
Presidents d’Afrique is an African response to Sarko from the highly influential and musically respected Francophone Hip-Hop artist, Didier Awadi.
It has taken me a while to open up to rap & hip-hop. But not being fluent in French means being able to completely ignore what's being said, and maybe that's what helped a genre-newbie like me take notice instead of the way it's put together - the architecture, the construction, of elements assembled and stitched into the weave of a whole sonic fabric.
But if I never saw art in the genre before, I sure noticed its status as international medium for the dispossessed. And what’s being voiced here comes from the long history of struggle against colonialism which marks past and future right across the continent.
Awadi’s assemblage takes excerpts from speeches by black leaders like Thomas Sankara, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Cheikh Anta Diop, Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon, sets their statements to music, and then blends rappers from across Africa, the Caribbean and America, to create a profound monument to revolutionary leaders who gave their lives for a Pan-African ideal of unity, independence and pride.
Some say that we don’t have a sense of history and memory in Africa. With this album we will make them think again…
Didier Awadi, Dakar, 2010
Awadi - Presidents d'Afrique - PLUS
121.3 MB
https://mega.co.nz/#!mcRH0ApQ!Iya15BTIzefOGD9VkPPtGZz8ruQORaa-tqwEwhZ17yo
A couple of the tracks sound like they cut off too early and abruptly.
A couple of the tracks sound like they cut off too early and abruptly.
In compensation, extra tracks from elsewhere are included.
