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00:00Africa, one of the fastest-growing regions in the world, the youngest continent where
00:12six in every 10 people are under 25.
00:17With hundreds of different ethnicities and some 2,000 languages, Africa is the most culturally
00:23diverse place on Earth.
00:27I'm Afua Hirsch.
00:29I've been lucky enough to work across Africa as a journalist, and now I'm exploring Africa's
00:36history through its extraordinary creativity and culture.
00:41I'm looking at how three very different countries, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Kenya, emerged from
00:49the shadow of empire in the 20th century and are thriving in the 21st.
00:58These African countries are reasserting their identity, gaining new recognition for their
01:03role as cultural powerhouses.
01:06I'm interested in how that's happened and how the struggles for liberation in the past
01:11have helped shape today's African renaissance.
01:18In this episode, Senegal, a French-speaking country of 15 million people in the far west
01:24of Africa.
01:27It has a cultural influence far beyond its size, with a dynamic film, fashion, and hip-hop
01:33scene.
01:34For you, they all listen to hip-hop, so if you want to make them understand something,
01:39rap it.
01:40Here, the struggles for liberation from the slave trade and from French rule in the 20th
01:45century created heroes and leaders who redefined what Africa is.
01:51A country of exuberant murals and street culture responding to the past.
02:08So many people forgot their past, where they come from.
02:14The griot is here to tell you who you are.
02:20When I was growing up in 1980s Britain, Africa was depicted as a dark continent without hope.
02:27Trying to make sense of my own African heritage, I was determined to see the other side to
02:32the story.
02:33And I came here to Senegal to find it.
02:35And what I found was a country that's had its problems, its suffering and oppression.
02:40But to be here is to experience the resilience of an African people's culture.
02:46In Senegal, art gives expression to the suffering of the past, but it does much more than that.
02:52It's the very thing that's powering Senegal's future.
03:16This story starts with a statement piece.
03:30Standing high above Senegal's capital, Dakar, at the very western tip of Africa, is a striking
03:3649-metre sculpture.
03:42This is the African Renaissance Monument.
03:45It was unveiled in 2010 to commemorate Senegal's 50 years of independence.
03:51Despite a bombastic style, reminiscent perhaps more of North Korea than West Africa, it's
03:56an imposing and assertive work.
04:00It depicts a strong African family, a mother, father and child, a symbol of an independent
04:06continent striding forth into its future.
04:11This is a monument to Africans all over the continent and in the diaspora, a signal to
04:16the world that the African Renaissance has arrived, with Senegal at its centre.
04:22This is an African Statue of Liberty.
04:28To understand why it's been erected here, what makes Senegal so confident about its
04:33place in African culture, we have to understand Senegal's struggle for liberation.
04:39And further back, in earlier centuries, how the country was formed in the clash of empires.
05:03Long before Europeans arrived in Senegal, great empires fought bitterly to control the
05:08West African coastline.
05:14The Mali Empire flourished here in the early Middle Ages, rich from trade in copper, ivory,
05:20salt and gold.
05:22Mali 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
05:34people today make up two-fifths of Senegal's population, the largest single ethnic group.
05:43In its quest for power, the Wolof Empire established trading networks across West Africa, along
05:49which people, ideas and, crucially, materials flowed, above all, gold.
06:01Wolof metalsmiths turned the working of this precious material into an art form, creating
06:07intricate jewellery for the empire's new aristocrats.
06:16Khadim Gueye still fashions gold in the same way as generations of his ancestors before
06:22him.
06:39The Wolofs specialise in making filigree, jewellery combining layers of carefully soldered
06:45threads and beads.
07:14Can you tell me the history of gold in this part of West Africa?
07:44Yes.
07:45It goes on?
07:46Yes.
07:47It's beautiful.
07:49It's beautiful.
07:50Thank you very much.
07:51What a beautiful, beautiful piece of jewellery and a Pan-African one too.
08:21The medieval West African empires have left a powerful artistic legacy.
08:27A reminder that Africa was not savage as the Europeans claimed when they first arrived in the 15th century.
08:34West Africa had its own complex societies in which art and innovation flourished.
08:41It's shocking that we know so little about this, although perhaps not surprising.
08:48It was a truth the first Europeans here needed to suppress to justify their brutal and ruthless power grab.
08:56When Europeans came to this West African coastline, they weren't really interested in engaging with this rich history of tradition, culture and art.
09:24They saw it as a place that could make them rich and they did that by taking things.
09:29Gold, land and, for hundreds of years, enslaved people.
09:39This is Goree Island, just two miles off the coast of modern-day Dakar and only half a mile long.
09:48Goree was first settled by the Portuguese as far back as the mid-15th century, but then the Dutch, English and finally the French took their turns.
10:06The House of Slaves was built in the 18th century for a wealthy French slave-trading family.
10:13The architecture is immediately unsettling. Above, airy verandas. Below, grim cells.
10:28This isn't the only place on the West African coast where slaves were kept in dark, overcrowded rooms like this would have been before being shipped across the Atlantic.
10:39But every time I come to one of these sites, I find it chilling to the core.
10:46It's impossible not to stand in a dungeon like this and imagine the squalor, the overcrowding, the violence, the death, the uncertainty of being sent across the ocean to a lifetime of enslavement.
11:00Goree was just one of dozens of similar bases along the West African coast, from which slavery continued until it was finally abolished here in 1848.
11:12There's ongoing debate about how many people actually left via Goree Island, but this site has become a potent symbol of the transatlantic slave trade as a whole and 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 has been preserved as a World Heritage Site, and 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, seeing Goree Island as a nice day out, a bit of shopping, some fun.
11:53There's a frivolity that I can't imagine at other equivalent sites of past atrocities, like concentration camps or scenes of genocide.
12:08Competing European powers clawed their way along the west coast of Africa, inflicting cruelty upon the people here.
12:16But it was the French who succeeded in claiming Senegal as theirs, and it's the French whose legacy is most felt today.
12:25This is Saint-Louis.
12:28In 1659, the French established a trading base here at the mouth of the Senegal River.
12:38For centuries, the city was the epicentre of trade and commerce.
12:42In 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 French African Empire, the base from which they spread into the Sahara.
13:03The French legacy lingers in Senegal today, in language, architecture, but also in the people themselves.
13:13France turned Saint-Louis into a grand experiment, seeding a hybrid Creole culture, like that of Havana and New Orleans, and it created a new caste who would bolster their rule.
13:30French traders had children with local African women, creating a new mixed-race population called the Matisse.
13:37The Matisse became an elite merchant class, wielding significant power within the colonial structure.
13:44Saint-Louis is still renowned for its Matisse culture.
13:48Matisse women, called Senyars, became known for their extravagant gold jewellery and French-style clothes, which they wore in procession to church in their adopted Catholic faith.
14:06Today, their descendants continue to show off that exuberant heritage.
14:36The matriarchy.
14:39Do you still wear gold with this traditional filigree?
14:45Yes, from time immemorial, the Senyars always wore gold, because they were rich.
14:52They were great merchants who held the pavé.
14:58We trace this procession through the Takousa Nundar, which goes around the city.
15:03This is how it was done in the old days.
15:06Many of our stylists have remade Senyars' clothes to allow us to immerse ourselves in the tradition.
15:33In fact, the Senyars had such an impact on the spirit of Senegal.
15:42Because, in addition to that, they were good in their own skin.
15:47They spoke French as well as French, so they were really good.
15:53It was the women, first of all, who had the most influence.
15:57They helped a lot, they were social, they were involved in a lot of things.
16:02So, as soon as we pass by, everyone takes pictures of us, everyone wants to kiss us, as soon as we dress like this.
16:10Because it's part of the culture of Saint Louis.
16:13So, as soon as everyone is happy, everyone takes pictures.
16:17How did having years of experience with the Senyars,
16:21make a difference to their status, and also how other Africans saw them?
16:25Saint Louis is the first European city in Africa.
16:28You see, they were able to unite the two civilizations.
16:31Yes, it didn't bother at the time, because people were much more open.
16:35I find it incredible that the culture survives to this day.
16:39It's been 100 years now.
16:42Three centuries?
16:44Yes, three centuries.
16:45And it continues.
16:47Now, we celebrate, everyone is dressed in Senyars.
16:50Everything that is cultural, there are always Senyars.
16:53In Dakar, everywhere.
16:55In Paris, we bring Senyars when there are parties.
16:58In some ways, I want to smile along with these Senyar women.
17:02On the face of it, there seems to be an empowering, multicultural story
17:07of mixed-race people, unusually respectful of each other.
17:10Of black women wielding economic power,
17:13at a time in history when that was not common anywhere in the world.
17:17On the other hand, they were complicit in the colonial system, profiting from it,
17:22even buying and owning their own slaves.
17:25It's a complicated history.
17:29Saint Louis, with its Matisse overlords,
17:32was Senegal's most important city.
17:35Saint Louis, with its Matisse overlords,
17:38was Senegal's most important city until 1902,
17:42when power transferred to Dakar in the south.
17:46There, the French faced a major challenge.
18:05Sufi Islam had taken root in West Africa in the 11th century.
18:11But in the 19th century, it became a formidable rival for power.
18:16Sufi preachers saw the potential for revolution.
18:20Organisations known as brotherhoods sprang up across the country,
18:25radicalising followers against French rule.
18:29This is Touba, site of the Great Mosque of the Marid Brotherhood.
18:42Laid out in classic Islamic style,
18:45it was begun in 1887 and only finished in 1963.
18:50A vast projection of religious power.
18:53This is an absolutely amazing mosque, and it's huge.
18:57One of the biggest in Africa.
19:00It can hold around 7,000 worshippers.
19:03Its sheer scale feels like a rebuke to French Catholicism.
19:08It has five minarets.
19:11The tallest looks like a lighthouse,
19:14calling the faithful to prayer.
19:17An Islamic version of Notre Dame.
19:19Touba Mosque is emblematic of the failure of the French
19:23to fully colonise Senegal.
19:26Even the way they practice their faith here
19:29shows that this is a culture that has always done things its own way,
19:33that has always fought back.
19:37The man behind the building of the mosque was Sheikh Amadou Bamba.
19:42Bamba inspired his supporters to non-violent protest
19:45and passive resistance against French rule.
19:49Like the British against Gandhi in India,
19:52the French struggled to contain it.
19:55This is the only surviving picture of Bamba,
19:59taken by the French authorities in 1913.
20:02Bamba wears a flowing white robe,
20:05and his face is almost entirely covered.
20:08It's a cryptic, almost mythic image.
20:16The French exiled Bamba twice,
20:19then allowed him back, but tried to keep him quiet.
20:23But it was too late.
20:26Bamba's image had in itself become a powerful symbol of resistance.
20:32It still daubed all over Senegal today.
20:46Like the iconography of Che Guevara or Lord Kitchener,
20:51the power of the image has transcended
20:54the real person it's meant to represent.
20:57Like the iconography of Che Guevara or Lord Kitchener,
21:01the power of the image has transcended
21:04the real person it's meant to represent.
21:27When you see the image of Che Guevara,
21:30what does it do to you? What does it mean to you?
21:32What does it do to you? What does it mean to you?
21:54Members of the Baifal sect,
21:57particularly devout and vocal followers of Bamba
21:59within the Muride Brotherhood,
22:02come to celebrate the new mural of their hero.
22:07It's hard to overstate how much a part of everyday life
22:11Bamba's legacy is here in Senegal.
22:14And painting his image is a way for people to connect with him.
22:17It's also a blessing for those who walk past and see it,
22:20and a way of asking for divine help.
22:29I can tell you that there are tremors,
22:32very big sensations.
22:47Automatically, you feel that this guy is a man of God.
22:59The image does a lot for us.
23:02We didn't experience the loss of every member of Bamba.
23:05There is only one photo of every member of Bamba.
23:08That's why this photo marks us,
23:11and does something for us, as young people.
23:16The French Empire failed to win hearts and minds.
23:20The French Empire failed to win hearts and minds.
23:23The French Empire failed to win hearts and minds.
23:26The French Empire failed to win hearts and minds
23:29in its campaign against Bamba and Islam.
23:32By the time he died in 1926,
23:35many Senegalese revered him as a prophet and a saint.
23:40French power was weakening,
23:43and what would now push it to the brink was war.
23:46200,000 young men from French West Africa
23:50were enlisted to fight for France during the First World War.
23:5530,000 were killed,
23:58and those who survived experienced vile racism and abuse.
24:05When Senegalese troops occupied the Rhineland area of Germany,
24:10the nation was at war.
24:12When Senegalese troops occupied the Rhineland area of Germany,
24:15the Nazis stoked fear about the mixing of white women with black African soldiers.
24:21The children born from these relationships,
24:24labelled the Rhineland bastards,
24:26were forcibly sterilised after the Nazis took power in Germany.
24:30Worse was to follow.
24:34During World War II, many Senegalese troops captured fighting for France
24:39were summarily executed by the SS,
24:42only because they were black.
24:45France's defeat in 1940,
24:48and the Vichy government's collaboration with the Nazis,
24:51also proved to Senegalese soldiers that the French Empire was rotten.
25:01In November 1944,
25:04when Senegalese troops protested against conditions they were kept in
25:08at Camp Thierroi near Dakar,
25:10things turned violent.
25:1225 Senegalese were killed by white French troops.
25:17The massacre galvanised a generation,
25:20and in particular the life of one 21-year-old Senegalese soldier called Ousmane Sembène.
25:28Sembène is hailed today as the father of African film.
25:33Originally a novelist,
25:35he turned to cinema to get his message across
25:38when he realised it's far greater reach and power for Africans.
25:42The Waggoner, made in 1963,
25:45was the first ever film made by a black African.
25:50But Sembène's most famous and controversial film
25:54came two decades later,
25:56when he revisited the trauma of the Thierroi massacre.
26:00The film was released in 1988 in Senegal,
26:03but banned for ten years in France.
26:06Clarence Delgado was Ousmane Sembène's assistant director,
26:10who worked with him on most of his films,
26:13including Camp Thierroi.
26:40I was curious to know what we were doing and what we were saying to them.
26:45It's an event we don't want to talk about,
26:50because it's a shameful event for the French army
26:55at the time of the liberation.
26:59It ended in a massacre.
27:11They did everything to censor this film.
27:14They don't want us to talk about their past.
27:17And that's what Sembène wanted to denounce.
27:21Sembène had a fascinating life.
27:24He was a fisherman, he was in the army,
27:27he then became a writer and a film director.
27:30He had a great career.
27:32He was a great actor,
27:34he was a great actor,
27:36he was a great actor,
27:37he was in the army,
27:39he then became a writer and a film director.
27:41What was he like as a person,
27:43and what was he like to work with?
28:07I told him we were there, and I asked him what was going on.
28:11He said there was too much tension.
28:14And then he said,
28:16this film, if we have to finish it by winning, we'll do it.
28:20He cried. Two big men, him and me, we cried.
28:27For me, it's one of the most beautiful films of Sembène,
28:30of Sembène Ousmane, that he's been able to make.
28:34Ousmane Sembène was not the only former soldier transformed by war.
28:39The Tiroi massacre and the French cover-up
28:42helped turn another towards nationalist politics,
28:46leading Senegal to independence.
28:52Leopold Senghor is one of the most intriguing and significant figures
28:57in 20th-century African history.
29:00He was the architect of Senegal's peaceful breakaway from French rule
29:05and his country's first president in 1960.
29:09An unusual politician for his time,
29:12he was not a strongman or an ideologue, but a debonair poet.
29:31HE SPEAKS FRENCH
29:38Both a Francophile intellectual
29:40and a man steeped in Senegalese culture,
29:43neither a pro-Western capitalist nor a hardline socialist.
29:47Perhaps the secret of Senghor's success
29:50was that he was something of a go-between,
29:52operating in different cultures.
29:55He wanted to rejuvenate Senegal and assert its independence
29:59against a French colonial rule,
30:01not by displays of force, but by displays of art and culture.
30:06HE SINGS IN FRENCH
30:29Senghor was from Joal Fadute, south of Dakar,
30:33a member of a minority ethnic group known as the Sere,
30:37Christians within a country that's 95% Muslim.
30:51Senghor knew that he wanted to be a Muslim,
30:55but he didn't know how.
31:01Senghor never lost touch with his roots.
31:04Even as president, he came back regularly to visit his home village.
31:12Many of these women sang praise songs for him
31:15and do so again today in his honour at the village baobab tree.
31:25SINGING CONTINUES
31:39The 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 today.
31:54SINGING CONTINUES
32:24SINGING CONTINUES
32:55SINGING CONTINUES
32:58You really feel connected to the African story here in this village,
33:02and even though he was an intellectual, a writer, a politician,
33:06he was absolutely grounded in his spiritual heritage
33:09as a proud African and a member of this community.
33:15Senghor wanted to project a confident new vision of African culture.
33:20His philosophy centred on an idea he called negritude.
33:26Negritude rejected Western labels of tribal art as primitive
33:30and envisaged African identity being rebuilt through pride in traditional culture.
33:39So, after independence, the poet president pumped state money into the arts.
33:46He showed off his country's progress to the world
33:49with the first World Festival of Negro Arts.
33:54Let joy fill the streets.
33:59Gather round, gather round.
34:02Let young and old join in.
34:04A festival is born.
34:07For three weeks in April 1966,
34:10Dakar was alive with thousands of people attending performances and exhibitions.
34:16Senghor opened the festival.
34:19Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie,
34:21mixed with African-American jazz pioneer Duke Ellington.
34:26There were steel drum musicians from the Caribbean,
34:29and traditional dancers from Benin were on the same bill
34:32as contemporary dancers from New York.
34:39Negritude came of age in the 1960s
34:41when African decolonisation was at its height
34:44and the consciousness raised by the American civil rights movement
34:48was sweeping across the world.
34:54So this was an extraordinary celebration for Africans and the diaspora.
35:11Senghor didn't let up.
35:14In the 1970s,
35:15negritude was a policy that affected every aspect of Senegalese culture.
35:21This is the Ecole des Sables, an African dance school,
35:25and it's a direct legacy of Senghor's discovery.
35:46It was built in the 1880s,
35:48And it's a direct legacy of Senghor's push for negritude.
35:54This school is the successor to the Mudra Afrique,
35:57founded by Senghor in 1977.
36:00He wanted to find out what negritude would look like in dance.
36:09And he put Senegal's most influential dancer and choreographer,
36:13Germaine Akonyi, in charge.
36:16The result was a unique fusion of traditional African movements
36:20and music with European forms, the best of both worlds.
36:46In the 1970s, President Senghor wanted to make Senegal the Greece of Africa.
36:52There was literature, plastic arts,
36:55there were always traditional and heritage dances,
36:58but he wanted a dance that was modern.
37:01Can you tell me more about what the philosophy at Mudra Afrique was
37:06and what the legacy of that school has been?
37:08Mudra means gesture.
37:10That is, even if we don't speak the same language,
37:12through gestures we can understand each other.
37:16Maurice Béjar, for a dancer,
37:19he had to be an actor,
37:22he had to have all the possibilities of the body and the voice
37:26to be an excellent dancer.
37:28But the main thing was to make a modern African dance,
37:33of modern times, that everyone could enjoy.
37:37And there, we succeeded, and with my dance technique,
37:40we succeeded.
37:46So there were students who came from all over Africa to Mudra,
37:51the first to really make the contemporary dances of Africa known.
37:58What is it about African art and African dance
38:01that captivates the world?
38:03What is the spirit here that makes our art so powerful?
38:08Well, I think it's this energy, this strength of the earth that we have.
38:16Because this energy of the earth,
38:18this strength, whether it's slow or fast,
38:21it's always alive.
38:24And Africa is a force.
38:27And here, Africans need to know that too,
38:30and be proud of who they are.
38:35I found meeting Germaine truly inspiring.
38:38A lot of people talk about negritude,
38:41but she's taken those ideas and put them into practice,
38:44creating new forms of artistic self-expression.
38:48And for me, that's a really powerful reminder
38:51of the fact that art can change the way we think about ourselves
38:55and our identities,
38:57and it can change the way we imagine the future.
39:06Not everyone in Senegal saw negritude as that future.
39:11While Senghor tried to redefine Senegal's culture,
39:14many ordinary Senegalese found his state-sponsored vision
39:17too prescriptive and top-down.
39:22They accused him of using the arts to inflate his own status and power.
39:28And they responded with an explosion of creativity from below,
39:34with art that expressed the voice of the people and of the street.
39:40The legacy can be seen across the country.
39:42The very walls of Dakar are evidence of people
39:45challenging prevailing ideas and expressing their cultural freedom.
39:50Murals began appearing in Senegal in huge numbers in the 1980s
39:54as part of a movement called Set Cetal,
39:57from 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
40:11with positive social messages of renewal and change.
40:19Dakar's streets have become a canvas on which Senegal's people
40:24tell their own story in their own way.
40:30And it's not just on the walls.
40:38Spontaneous expression erupts from the people.
40:41Asserting their identity and pride in their own past.
41:12This dance is performed by Bejola people,
41:15migrants to the city from southern Senegal.
41:21They're an ethnic group who believe that when the dancers wear masks,
41:25they're transformed into spirits.
41:42This dance is incredibly activating to watch,
41:45but it's more than just a performance.
41:47And the dance was doing more than just representing the characters
41:51whose masks he's wearing.
41:53While he's dancing, he's embodying the spirit of the mask,
41:57becoming a medium between the spiritual and the physical realm.
42:01It's so amazing to see.
42:12The dancers play evil ghosts or demons
42:15that need exorcising out of this community.
42:24That's why this dance is so urgent and exuberant.
42:41MUSIC PLAYS
42:51Mask ceremonies are cathartic and healing.
42:55A way for a minority people to assert control
42:58over an ever-changing world.
43:12MUSIC CONTINUES
43:22The freedom and confidence you see on Senegal's streets
43:25has deep roots.
43:32To understand the country's strong sense of national identity and story,
43:37you have to understand a cast of people here known as griots.
43:44For centuries, griots have been guardians of Senegal's popular culture,
43:49storytellers of song, music and dance,
43:52a living repository of a community's traditions.
44:07MUSIC CONTINUES
44:17Many griots, like Djabel Sisokor,
44:20play the kora, a traditional 21-string harp.
44:38The griot is a messenger.
44:42We are a story and we keep story and we tell a story.
44:53So many people forgot their past, where they come from,
44:58and 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?
45:14How did your dad become a griot?
45:29Do you know how many generations of your family are griot?
45:33200 generations?
45:51What's it like being a full-time griot?
46:02What kind of things do you sing about?
46:32I can write that as a griot.
46:43HUMMING
47:02MUSIC CONTINUES
47:13That was gorgeous. What were you singing about?
47:16I was singing, you see, what is around us today.
47:19I knew I was blushing!
47:21I was singing what is around us.
47:24Today I'm very happy to welcome my friends here,
47:27come from England, to come and see the griot.
47:33Griots are just part of everyday life here.
47:36As musicians, storytellers, giving a voice to Senegalese people.
47:41And that voice has been a very stabilising force in Senegal.
47:45As eras, regimes and individual politicians have come and gone,
47:49griots have always been there.
47:51Some people even say it's because of griots
47:54that Senegal has been such a stable country.
47:59Griots are the voice of the street.
48:01And in the 1980s and 90s, they paved the way for a new wave of music
48:06when American hip-hop came to Senegal in a big way.
48:24Senegal was uniquely placed to understand and absorb hip-hop.
48:28Rappers communicating stories about poverty and dislocation,
48:32speaking truth to power.
48:34These 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.
48:53They borrowed the style, musical rhythms
48:56and progressive messaging of American hip-hop
48:59and mapped it onto Senegal's social issues.
49:02As a teenager, I loved listening to them.
49:06Welcome. Thank you, Didier.
49:08Tell me your name again. Efwa. Efwa.
49:10Nice to meet you.
49:11The group was co-founded by Didier Awadi,
49:14the father of Senegalese hip-hop.
49:1630 years on, he's still making music.
49:19This is where we do editing because we do a lot of film.
49:24Wow! That's amazing.
49:26Yeah.
49:27Oh, and it's from the Positive Black Soul days.
49:30Yeah.
49:31The first thing we wanted to have is our own equipment
49:34in order to be independent.
49:36I listened to Positive Black Soul in those days.
49:38Really? I can't believe it was so long ago.
49:41Welcome in the studio.
49:43Oh, this is where the magic happens.
49:45Oh, I don't know if it's magic.
49:47This is where we do my office.
49:50How are you?
49:52What are you doing in here?
49:53You know Mami Wata?
49:54Yeah, Mami Wata.
49:56We have a version of Mami Wata.
49:58We have some highlights.
49:59Oh, I love highlights.
50:01Can we hear a tiny bit?
50:06It's him singing.
50:07Oh, I love it.
50:14Now we have the chorus.
50:16Gorgeous.
50:18Put my verse on.
50:23Let me do it.
50:24There.
50:25Oh, okay. Great.
50:26Yeah.
50:28I could literally listen to this all day.
50:49From day one, the topics of our music were corruption, injustice, lack of democracy,
51:11more employment for the youth.
51:14They start understanding that, okay, this young boy, the voice of the voiceless,
51:21and very quickly we got accepted.
51:25For me, my mission is to bring back consciousness and give them the keys of life.
51:33And the keys of life today, you have to be strong in your mind, in your soul,
51:39and you need to know who you are.
51:42And what's the role of hip-hop in asking those questions?
51:4560% of our population are young, you know?
51:49So the youth, they all listen to hip-hop.
51:51So if you want to talk to them and make them understand something, rap it.
51:56If you come in with philosophy or your history, they don't have time for it.
52:01When the person is seriously ill and he don't know that he's ill,
52:05you know, you need to find another way to give him the medicine.
52:10Hip-hop is so big in Senegal that it's a major feature of elections.
52:15In 2019, each politician had a rapper alongside them at campaign events.
52:26There's even a news channel with nightly broadcasts rapped instead of being spoken.
52:33For 40 years, we had one party ruling.
52:37We decided, no, we don't want them anymore.
52:40So we started telling the people, the youth, you have to go and vote.
52:43If you want to change it, if we all go and vote, it will change.
52:48And this is what happened.
52:50We took a system with, you know, the army, with the media and everything, we took them out.
52:57You need to use your voice and the power that you have to change things.
53:08A century ago, the French branded Dakar the Paris of Africa for its style and sophistication.
53:18But it was hip-hop in the 1990s that put Dakar on the world map
53:22as a place of new ideas and inspiration.
53:27In music, dance and fashion.
53:32The Dakar Biennale and the Dakar Fashion Week draw international artists, designers and buyers.
53:46Many young Senegalese express their identity and creativity today through fashion.
53:58Nunu is one of Dakar's top young designers,
54:02finding success by combining traditional Senegalese styles with international ideas.
54:28The collection is called Pagne en Héritage,
54:31so the heritage of Pagne in Africa.
54:36It is important for African designers to do research about this heritage of African Pagne.
54:43It is up to us designers to be able to go out, to be able to explain,
54:48to tell through clothes this heritage of Pagne,
54:52of other materials in general that we find in Africa.
54:58African fashion is special.
55:00It is special because through fashion we remain ourselves.
55:10It is a country that moves forward with its young people.
55:14In recent years, there is a young generation, in any case,
55:18who strongly believes that Africa will do with Africans.
55:28In the 21st century, the world is looking at African call.
55:35And Senegal is leading the way as a top destination.
55:43Particularly for the African diaspora, from Europe, the Caribbean and America,
55:48the very descendants of those who were shipped out centuries ago
55:52from places like Goree Island.
56:00Now they are coming back to reconnect with their African heritage.
56:04Some even make Senegal their home,
56:07the place for them to fulfil a dream of repatriation back to Africa.
56:15As somebody who has lived in America, do you have a dream?
56:19As somebody who has lived in America,
56:22do you feel that people in the diaspora understand what it's really like
56:26living in 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?
56:41Starving children and they show the poverty
56:44or they'll hear about police corruption and things like that.
56:47Those are the images that our media in the United States portrays of Africa
56:52and it's not true.
56:53You get the weirdest questions from people.
56:55They ask you, do you have to shower outside?
56:58Does your house have a roof or is it like hay on the top?
57:02And so that's when we were like,
57:04OK, we're going to just have to take a lot of photos and videos and show people.
57:08RJ 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
57:23of not just Senegal or West Africa, but the continent.
57:26We want to create home and we want it to be here for our children
57:29and I think that's what we've got to look forward to right now.
57:32Gigi, you have been here a few weeks.
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. They're just cousins that you haven't met yet.
58:01Senegal has emerged from its centuries of history
58:04as a country that's stable, tolerant and welcoming,
58:07with vibrant art and culture.
58:11A place where people are used to expressing themselves and their politics,
58:16where clashes of ideas have fed a unique creativity.
58:24In the next episode, Kenya.
58:27Its history and culture driven by fundamental questions about the land.
58:41Kenya.
58:43The story of Kenyans.
58:45The story of Kenyans.
58:47The story of Kenyans.
58:49The story of Kenyans.
58:51The story of Kenyans.
58:53The story of Kenyans.
58:55The story of Kenyans.
58:57The story of Kenyans.
58:59The story of Kenyans.
59:01The story of Kenyans.
59:03The story of Kenyans.
59:05The story of Kenyans.