A Year of Cultural Rejuvenation Among Afro People
The Internationally celebrated singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo kicked off the year 2020 with a monumental performance at the 62nd Grammy Awards in January.
The iconic Benenise icon not only snagged her fourth grammy for Best World Music Album but brought the true spirit of Africa to the show as she proclaimed with pride that African music is the bedrock of all music.
Saying Goodbye to Cultural Legends
In the African tradition of honouring our elders, let’s take a brief moment to recognise the passing of a few other musical legends in 2020.
Nigerian drummer Tony Allen passed away this year at 79 after a decades-long career — 14 over which he thrived alongside fellow legend and bandmate Fela Kuti, and with whom he innovated the old school style of the Afrobeats genre.
Revered as a pioneer of traditional Ivorian music, Allah Thérèse — known for her signature hairstyle, ‘Akôrou Koffié,’ was loved and mourned across the county, following her passing at the age of 70.
Iconic cultural ambassador and the founder of the South African multi-Grammy-Award-winning music group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Joseph Shabalala, was laid to rest at 78 years old.
The loss of the patriarch of Rumba and Congolese music at 87, Edo Nganga was hard to swallow as he was the last surviving member of one of Africa’s oldest musical groups Bantous de la capitale.
Many people paid tribute to Nganga as hundreds also gathered to do so for Guinean singer Mory Kante, who is known for helping introduce African music to a world audience in the 1980s and took his last breath at a hospital in Conakry at the age of 70.
Another precious soul lost to health issues at just 43 years old was Black-American Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman — whose image symbolised a revival of the cultural reconnection between Africa and Afro-descendants in the Diaspora.
A feat Senegalese hip hop artist Akon is undertaking as he announced in September that his futuristic pan-African project near Senegal’s capital, Akon City was officially underway. A Wakanda-likened utopia to serve as home to Afro people in the Diaspora marginalised by racism abroad.
Somalia also made a move to culturally reinforce its lands as the East African nation signed in February an education and heritage support deal with UNESCO aimed at strengthening efforts to preserve the country’s culture and history — as well as improve its educational sector. In alignment, the reopening of the refurbished Mogadishu national theatre this year also coincided with the country’s 60 years of independence celebration.
Benin also undertook a renovation project in August as the land of the former Kingdom of Dahomey decided to restore its Ouidah Fort — which also houses a history museum, as part of a bid to promote tourism and also to honour the suffering and celebrate the overcoming our African Ancestors who were captured and inhumanely shipped abroad from the main port of this coastal town.
Black American star Beyoncé Knowles likewise sought to embrace her African African roots with the release of her visual album Black Is King in July. The project — which heavily featured talent from all over the African continent, speaks to the collective history of all people of African descent as it showcased diverse Afrobeats and fashion.
An industry revolutionised in May by Anifa Mvuemba the Congolese high fashion designer who held the world’s first EVER virtual 3D fashion show via Instagram LIVE. A history-making event which showcased the Pink Label Congo series from her Hanifa collection catering to the natural curves of a woman’s physique.
