Africa Express Superpost

Picture Africa.

Did you picture it as a continent or a country?  A land made up of diverse nations, or some ethnic & mystical place where you want to visit just for a safari?  Full of individual human beings, or full of savages or lesser beings that have to be saved?  Did you picture possibility or pity?  Awareness or dominating intervention?

I hope the former of all of those things.  However a lot of people suffer from the savoir complex – or the “white savior complex.”  Look @ TOMS.  Look @ what KONY 2012 was or was supposed to be.  Look @ every little celebrity activist embracing African children & taking them home, effectively solving every economic, social, & political problem just by gracing Africa with their presence.

Those images are wrong.  & they perpetuate an Africa forever “lesser” than the “developed” world – even though the developed world made that world lesser by starving it of its resources & enslaving communities for generations & starting wars every which way, but we don’t like to think about that.  We just like those images that show Africa as a heartbreak & a tragedy; a “hopeless continent” a phone dial away or a click away or a text away from utter salvation from poverty & disease & all those things.  Just buy this t-shirt or go to this concert & ALL WILL BE SAVED.

But that’s just incorrect.  Throwing money around won’t solve their problems.  Real & hard social change coming from the PEOPLE THEMSELVES will “save” those people.  Not that they need to be “saved” from anything; they just need some help.  They need the resources & the education & the other means to help themselves.  They don’t need your pity.  & they don’t need you mystifying their world & viewing them as one country full of cases to make you feel good about yourself. 

What they REALLY need is their own representation.  Because things aren’t always “look @ that kid starving on the side of the road.”  Because things are improving in a lot of places.  Because places actually HAVE cultures besides just “suffering” or “starving” or wasting away & whatever.  They have their clothing & food & languages & mannerisms & games & social gathering centers.  They’re not just suffering skeletons.  They’re LIVING.  They need their own representation to showcase THEIR OWN stories to the world.  Not the corporation’s story of little whoever who needs this amount of money to go to school.  & not Angelina Jolie’s other tale of some other kid taken from this country or that.  They need their OWN avenues & venues to address what THEY need.  & not just their needs, but their real desires – their hopes & dreams.  Their songs.  Their fashion.  Their stories & poems. 

Africa Express was created in 2006 to help this process of representation along.  It was started by premier African singers – ones that are already high-standing – like Toumani Diabate, Salif Keita, & Amadou & Mariam.  Also some white guy named Damon Albarn.

Now this white guy named Damon Albarn isn’t just some ordinary white guy in it to make money & / or to jack off to his own ego.  He actually cares.  & the people around him KNOW that he cares about them & about Africa Express.  They’re friends with him.  They talk kindly about him & embrace him & freely jam with him whenever they get the chance to. 

[the above video is FABULOUS btw]

This white guy named Damon Albarn is the reason a lot of people know about this project.  Because he IS the more famous white guy.  I sure know I probably wouldn’t have heard of Africa Express without him.  & it probably wouldn’t have been as well-embraced without him being a prominent figure.   He uses his name to his own advantage.  He uses his own prestige to get the word out.  & by dropping his own name, he knows that people will notice.  & by creating this self-generated press, he can help the other people in Africa Express get THEIR names out.

Africa Express had its first big break @ Glatsonbury 2007 with a great line-up.  It had the hopes of showcasing real African talent after so many live shows failed to do so [even shows supposedly made to help those people in the “depths” or whatever belittling language they used.]

Damon’s hopes, since 2004’s Band Aid, have been “[to] open people’s minds to the actual vicinity of African context with Europe, as opposed to this kind of desperate pit, where everything is always going wrong & we can just, from time to time, lavish them with a bit of our money.  [It has] to be very long term… [It’s] not a walk-in walk-out thing” [damonalbarn].  & other hopes of “trying to give a sense of that amazing thing that African music has, & to put it in strange places where it hasn’t really germinated [plus] connect[ing] with the African diaspora in places like Middlesbrough & Manchester” [‘Africa Express is just there to help spread the joy’]. 

Africa Express has grown from a handful of African artists to 80.  80.  80 artists working together to level the white savior complex to the ground.  That’s what this clusterfuck is – to dispel all those little notions.  Also to showcase great music.  & to show real upcoming musicians in a context they’re comfortable with; not some pity parade or some mystical orient setting.  They’re not lavished with anything; they’re treated like REAL musicians.   Those who are upcoming can market themselves & learn from those who are more established.  & even the more established musicians still have a blast jamming with each other, learning new rhythms & beats & melodies.  It’s designed to be enriching as well as fun.

& Africa Express is for everyone.  It’s not an event with unaffordable prices.  It’s VERY affordable.  This line up, Damon & the gang are on a literal train, going through the UK & popping up in places & doing impromptu performances.  Sometimes with little notice & to smaller crowds.  & sometimes to more well-known places & playing for thousands of people @ a time.  It’s random.  It’s day-to-day.  It’s fun.  

The musicians have fun.  I’m sure of it.  I’m fucking damn sure of it:

Even Sir Paul McCartney can have fun.

But unfortunately it’s come to a close.  & unfortunately I didn’t really get to see any of it, apart from the videos uploaded onto the interwebs.   Because I always miss Damon-related things, on account of how I’m always stuck in AMURRICA whenever he’s frequenting the greater British area.  Sucks to suck for me.

But judging from the internet – tumblr posts, online reviews, capslock’d tweets, & flickr accounts – it went well.  It went really well.

& it’s a lovely idea.  Damon has so many lovely ideas.  What a guy.