For its 34th edition, the Africolor festival celebrates livelier music than ever

When we talk about Africa, it is obvious: “There are 54 countries, an infinity of musical creations and musical genres“. He who speaks thus, en browsing the Africolor program, it is Sébastien Lagrave, director of the festival, who realizes the work accomplished in 34 editions. Alongside recognized names such as Fatoumata Diawara, Jupiter & Okwess or Bassekou Kouyaté, we discover the beating heart of Congolese, Malian, Comorian or Senegalese music, like the young star Samba Peuzzi.

Historically linked to Seine-Saint-Denis but with concerts in four neighboring departments, Africolor also assumes a political role, with for example a creation around Lalla Fadhma N’Soumer, a young Kabyle who faced French colonization in Algeria in the 19th century. . Culture as a means of remembering. Sébastien Lagrave insists: “For us, it is a question of giving to see and hear the history and the memories of those who came there a long time ago, these Malians, these Senegalese; their children are fully French and we realized over the years that they did not know their own history which is also our history, because the African independence of the 1960s is also the history of a relationship with France , always present and sometimes complicated. We do this work that National Education does not have the time to do, cannot or does not want to do“.

We are artistic because political, and political because artistic

Sébastien Lagrave, director of the Africolor festival

And like an echo, many women’s projects are emerging from Africa today, pushed by Africolor, whether it’s the Senegalese rappers Def Maa Maa Def, the Malian group Go Bamako or the kora player Sona Jobarteh, all present at the festival this year. “With a partner in Bamako, we have created a training structure so that they can have access to instruments and in particular to DJing, explains the director of the festival. This is where the Go of Bamako were born and, in other capitals of the continent, we have also had these training courses for women for ten years. They inevitably emerge on the stages of festivals, they are not only singers but appropriate all the means of production“.

If the global music industry leans towards Nigeria or South Africa, we will certainly never have finished exploring the musical riches of a continent apart.