One agenda item last Saturday is titled :"Hip Hop Artists and Musicians". As some of you know, I have some familiarity with the production of live music having been in the business in the 1990s---so I am intrigued and hoping for an opportunity to share some of what is learned with my much younger students.
The roundtable is moderated by a fantastic woman named Fatou Kande Senghor---she's sort of the caretaker of the Dakar hip-hop scene---an avid promoter of all things on the cutting edge here. She jokes about now bringing her kids to shows. She brings 3 fantastic young musician/poets.
Kemit www.kemitmusic.com A tall thin fellow with faraway eyes. Thoughtful, kind and a profoundly talented musician and rapper(in French and other Senegalese dialects like Woloff). The women in our group are entranced and he takes a generous number of selfies with everyone.
Xuman Begge. This guys is already pretty famous. He has an air of infinite cool and calmness. You can find him all over Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tajAvQYw2I
Samira: This incredible young woman is blazing all kind of trails for her gender in poetry and hip-hop here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O62_P51FL6U and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CG_XG8A5s0
They show some of their work, talk about their influences. Xuman speaks English well but the others need some help from Fatou. They are oozing musician charisma. They are kind, patient, and fascinating. I'd love to be part of helping them break out in America.
I ask a question about how they make a living. They spend a half hour on this. Their experiences mirror those of my musician friends all over the world. It is tough out there. Live performances, social media, merch sales, production, workshops, music lessons, downloads are all cobbled together so that the GEN X, millennial, and post-millenial generations can continue their soul-sucking addiction to "free" artistic content. Buy some of their music if you like it. I am.
The roundtable is moderated by a fantastic woman named Fatou Kande Senghor---she's sort of the caretaker of the Dakar hip-hop scene---an avid promoter of all things on the cutting edge here. She jokes about now bringing her kids to shows. She brings 3 fantastic young musician/poets.
Kemit www.kemitmusic.com A tall thin fellow with faraway eyes. Thoughtful, kind and a profoundly talented musician and rapper(in French and other Senegalese dialects like Woloff). The women in our group are entranced and he takes a generous number of selfies with everyone.
Xuman Begge. This guys is already pretty famous. He has an air of infinite cool and calmness. You can find him all over Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tajAvQYw2I
Samira: This incredible young woman is blazing all kind of trails for her gender in poetry and hip-hop here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O62_P51FL6U and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CG_XG8A5s0
They show some of their work, talk about their influences. Xuman speaks English well but the others need some help from Fatou. They are oozing musician charisma. They are kind, patient, and fascinating. I'd love to be part of helping them break out in America.
I ask a question about how they make a living. They spend a half hour on this. Their experiences mirror those of my musician friends all over the world. It is tough out there. Live performances, social media, merch sales, production, workshops, music lessons, downloads are all cobbled together so that the GEN X, millennial, and post-millenial generations can continue their soul-sucking addiction to "free" artistic content. Buy some of their music if you like it. I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment