:00:05. > :00:15.That is a summary of the news. That's it from me. Now it is time
:00:15. > :00:21.
:00:21. > :00:25.for HARDtalk. My my guest is an internationally renowned for this
:00:25. > :00:30.and a political opinion. His campaigning search is on sensitive
:00:30. > :00:38.territory, from the Rights of Women to climate change. Africa is now a
:00:38. > :00:48.jarring mix of economic growth and life-threatening poverty. As the
:00:48. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:13.continent changes, is the music Welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you.
:01:14. > :01:18.have always made a point of being positive and upbeat about the
:01:18. > :01:23.future of Africa but in the last few months you have found yourself
:01:23. > :01:30.a month some of the most poorest people, looking at people on the
:01:30. > :01:36.edge of hunger and starvation. How easy is it to maintain your
:01:36. > :01:42.enthusiasm and optimism when you see those things? It is not easy to
:01:43. > :01:51.maintain that. You have to keep it going. If you really believe in the
:01:51. > :02:01.fact that Africa has potential to be going into the future in a
:02:01. > :02:01.
:02:01. > :02:08.strong way. You know you have to be positive and need people like you
:02:08. > :02:16.to be aware and you need to drawn them, to be calling the people who
:02:16. > :02:26.make the decision to make it happened. I feel myself concerned
:02:26. > :02:26.
:02:26. > :02:31.about these people's future because I know they can bring what we need
:02:31. > :02:37.to shore and the government of some of these people, to campaign, to
:02:37. > :02:41.say, yes, we can make it. Can you paying for me a picture of what it
:02:41. > :02:47.was like to be, I think in one community where you were a few
:02:47. > :02:52.weeks ago, a nomadic people's small settlement that has been terribly
:02:52. > :02:57.hit by the drought and many hungry people, farmers to cannot scratch a
:02:57. > :03:03.living. You played music for them. It is not just about the drought.
:03:03. > :03:12.It is a food crisis. It is the combination people seeing what has
:03:12. > :03:19.happened to them, like a fatality. It did not rained for two days and
:03:19. > :03:24.now they are in the same situation. At the same time, the International
:03:24. > :03:30.Organisation for food is what people can opt to be in touch to
:03:30. > :03:34.bring back to their families. It is a combination of all of that. It is
:03:34. > :03:41.people who are well organised. When you go there you see the amount of
:03:41. > :03:48.people who are already to take the right information and who are well
:03:48. > :03:53.organised to be able, if somebody comes, or Excel 4, to bring a plan,
:03:53. > :04:01.to be with them to bring a future project and then they are ready.
:04:01. > :04:06.They are not just people waiting to be held. It is easy to bring
:04:06. > :04:11.somebody like me, who is part of the community, who has been there
:04:11. > :04:20.all the time, they have been listening to my songs since I
:04:20. > :04:27.started, and they referred to my songs. I was someone who was at the
:04:27. > :04:35.school, he went away for some time, and used my expenses, to bring
:04:35. > :04:39.information to them. -- experiences. It seems to me it was your
:04:39. > :04:45.community. You were brought up on the border with Mauritania, one of
:04:45. > :04:50.the badly affected areas. When we see people suffering, as they have
:04:50. > :04:55.been in the past few months, do we get to a point where we say, some
:04:55. > :05:03.of these people in the nomadic court has, they cannot have a
:05:04. > :05:08.future? Partly because of climate change as well. They have a future
:05:08. > :05:14.but they have to do just themselves to the reality of living now.
:05:14. > :05:22.can they do that? I was saying to some of these people, the nomadic
:05:22. > :05:27.people, into my songs, when I perform, for two days sometimes, in
:05:27. > :05:32.the night, but if the day I sit down with them, I go to visit with
:05:32. > :05:37.their families. We sit down and talk about families and education
:05:37. > :05:46.and politics. And you tell them they have to change? Yes. I say,
:05:46. > :05:50.for it supple, they have to understand climate change they have
:05:50. > :05:57.to organise their pastoral life in a more organised way, to see how
:05:57. > :06:03.people are doing it in the West. If you take something, they could be
:06:03. > :06:09.spoons, and you could doubt it to your new life and make it happened
:06:09. > :06:16.-- a good experience. I cannot understand why we are having these
:06:16. > :06:21.rivers where you have all of the people giving opportunity for what,
:06:21. > :06:26.agricultural system. Irrigation? Already we have a strong amount of
:06:26. > :06:30.young people ready to work. They do not want to leave to go to France
:06:30. > :06:36.or central Africa but sometimes they are so desperate because the
:06:36. > :06:41.plan is not there. You have worked as an ambassador with the UN on a
:06:41. > :06:45.number of different development programmes. You make appeals to the
:06:45. > :06:49.international community when things will really bad, saying get out
:06:49. > :06:54.your wallets and send assistance. I wonder but a part of you is
:06:54. > :07:01.beginning to believe those forms of assistance of really with us in a
:07:01. > :07:06.way and are not changing anything? -- pointless. Sometimes I have been
:07:06. > :07:12.criticised by my people when I start to talk about how to go away
:07:12. > :07:17.from the caste system, which many people are not free under, so
:07:17. > :07:23.people can be free and can have a good education system. At the end
:07:23. > :07:26.of the day the culture comes back to you are right. I know it is
:07:26. > :07:31.difficult to take people from their traditions and their way of
:07:31. > :07:37.thinking and to bring them into a new way of working. I am travelling
:07:37. > :07:41.all over the world and looking at it freeway and learning things. I
:07:41. > :07:51.come back and this concert I am doing is to share with them this
:07:51. > :07:54.
:07:54. > :07:59.kind of its fears. -- this kind of experience. I want too, in a way,
:07:59. > :08:03.get you to step back and reflect on your own upbringing and how you
:08:03. > :08:09.broke into music, which has gone international. In Senegal there is
:08:09. > :08:14.a tradition where there is a cost of people who are the storytellers
:08:14. > :08:20.and the Music makers. You were not part of that it you broke into that.
:08:20. > :08:27.How did you do it? In it has always been a struggle for me to do what I
:08:27. > :08:34.am doing right now. There is a way of projecting herself into what you
:08:35. > :08:43.want to do. My father was not expecting me to do that. He did not
:08:43. > :08:47.want you to be a musician? No. He had to accept it because heI was
:08:47. > :08:54.doing well at school but he did not know that music was what I wanted
:08:54. > :09:00.to do. He gave me advice, just to not be a musician to entertain
:09:00. > :09:07.people, but I had to promise them to use my music to participate in a
:09:07. > :09:14.way to educate my people from my community. You were in a sense a
:09:14. > :09:21.rabble? I am. I am always a rebel. -- a rabble. We are rebels because
:09:21. > :09:26.we do not see borders or frontiers between people. We travel over,
:09:26. > :09:31.since centuries or thousands of years, from east to west in Africa.
:09:31. > :09:37.We learned a lot of things. We cannot say we are the link between
:09:37. > :09:45.ethnic groups in Africa. The music I have learned from my grandparents,
:09:45. > :09:50.from my community, bought me that if I had to be this kind of
:09:50. > :09:54.musician I have to travel to see other people. I find what you say
:09:54. > :10:00.it is fascinating. You have inherited the nomadic culture of
:10:00. > :10:04.your people which is about farming, racing and you are a nomad but you
:10:04. > :10:10.are a musical nomad and you have spent years and used in this
:10:10. > :10:20.nomadic existence. I would like to see a clip that is any use of,
:10:20. > :10:45.
:10:45. > :10:51.playing a London concert. Give us a I want to just look at that and
:10:51. > :10:54.think about you now. It is a very traditional form of music. You are
:10:54. > :10:59.singing in your own language but you have reached millions of people
:10:59. > :11:05.in the world. Have you had to compromise will start to make it
:11:05. > :11:13.accessible? I am not going to call it compromise. I would just say it
:11:13. > :11:19.is a natural way to be going wrong my childhood, my cultural
:11:19. > :11:25.background, and the fact I went to school. I thank my father for that,
:11:25. > :11:30.to satisfy my curiosity. I travelled all over the world. When
:11:30. > :11:36.you travel, you learn things, you hear things and you see things that
:11:36. > :11:45.you like, and you appreciate things. For it supple, I came to London and
:11:45. > :11:49.I discovered Celtic music and I discovered similarities in the
:11:49. > :11:54.Middle East and the expression and I saw things close to how people in
:11:54. > :12:00.my community -- the melodies. I went into this kind of
:12:00. > :12:07.collaboration that brought elements into my music. You have obviously
:12:07. > :12:12.sunk in your own language but you have also sung in French. -- son.
:12:12. > :12:18.As that made a difference to your international appeal? It is
:12:18. > :12:22.important for African musicians, sometimes, to sing in different
:12:22. > :12:28.languages. We have something strong that comes from our instruments,
:12:28. > :12:32.from the structure of on music, that people want to be discovered.
:12:32. > :12:35.It is different for any type of music but we need to express
:12:35. > :12:41.ourselves in different languages and that is good because people
:12:41. > :12:45.want to know about our messages. Let's talk more about the messages.
:12:45. > :12:55.In the introduction I mentioned a couple of very famous abaca and
:12:55. > :12:56.
:12:56. > :13:03.some writers, singers, who have dabbled in politics -- musicians.
:13:03. > :13:12.You will also making a political stance. -- you are also. Is it easy
:13:12. > :13:22.as a creative artist to cross that We have always been political in
:13:22. > :13:26.Africa. When you are a musician, you get famous. The role of the
:13:26. > :13:33.griot's is very strong in history. These were the people not afraid to
:13:33. > :13:38.come and the leaders. Even now in modern days, to the President, to
:13:38. > :13:46.say, "This is the aspiration of your community, country and people".
:13:46. > :13:53.But as doing that -- but by doing that as this in the first and
:13:53. > :13:59.foremost, when I look at others who achieved so much and have become,
:13:59. > :14:02.for example, the Minister of Tourism, at some point, does your
:14:03. > :14:07.credibility as a musician suffer with your audience if you are so
:14:07. > :14:12.sucked into the political process? It can suffer sometimes. Some
:14:12. > :14:17.people follow you because of your musical talent for what you
:14:17. > :14:22.represent in the music and they don't want to lose that. But also,
:14:22. > :14:29.if you get the ability to play the music and use the power of your
:14:29. > :14:33.voice to point your finger on the important issues, sometimes it is
:14:33. > :14:38.more comfortable to stay in the musical scene and because you have
:14:38. > :14:42.much more power than politicians. What are you going to do? You have
:14:42. > :14:49.strong political opinions, you are tempted to move directly into party
:14:49. > :14:53.politics? I don't know yet. Maybe one day. That is a politician's
:14:53. > :14:58.answer. I will never rule it out. That is not my decision yet. But I
:14:58. > :15:03.will use my voice strongly to say the truth of what I feel is the
:15:03. > :15:08.truth of what can help people to move forward. Let me quote you
:15:08. > :15:13.something that the rapper Didier Awadi said. He said the last great
:15:13. > :15:16.is nobody else like that of the scene today. Do you agree with
:15:16. > :15:23.that? That there is a lack of visionary and strong political
:15:24. > :15:29.leadership in Africa? I know Didier Awadi very well. I know what he
:15:29. > :15:39.means by saying that. In Africa, especially the young generation,
:15:39. > :15:40.
:15:40. > :15:47.are looking for symbols and looking for role-models. To reflect what
:15:47. > :15:56.they believe deeply and what they suffered to make it happen. And
:15:56. > :16:00.when you look at the Continent, Nelson Mandela is far away on the
:16:00. > :16:07.front line from all the other African political leaders. People
:16:07. > :16:12.should sometimes refer to him because it is about making people
:16:12. > :16:19.move forward but also teaching us to stand up in this time we live in
:16:19. > :16:22.now. It is teaching, I guess, but also confronting people with a
:16:22. > :16:25.difficult decision sometimes. Confronting your own people with
:16:25. > :16:30.difficult decisions. Nelson Mandela with that in his agreeing to go
:16:30. > :16:33.into a process with the clerk and working with white politicians. I
:16:33. > :16:37.just wonder whether you are prepared for some of the
:16:37. > :16:41.difficulties that I can see for you if you continue with your message
:16:41. > :16:45.about the modernisation and change in said that -- in Senegal and
:16:45. > :16:49.African society, particularly for some of the gender issues, women's
:16:49. > :16:55.rights, which you have pushed hard for. And it runs against many
:16:56. > :17:00.traditions in Senegalese culture. am not afraid of that. You have to
:17:00. > :17:04.believe in what you are talking about. If you are a musician and an
:17:04. > :17:12.artist, you have to believe in the messages you are delivering to
:17:12. > :17:16.people. But it can get very personal. What about polygamy?
:17:16. > :17:23.give answers in many interviews about how my mother suffered with
:17:23. > :17:29.polygamy. And how difficult it was for many women in my society who
:17:29. > :17:33.were faced with that, not understanding what it would bring
:17:33. > :17:37.to their children. You talk very personally about it because, to
:17:38. > :17:41.remind people, your own mother had seven children by your father and
:17:41. > :17:45.your father then took another wife and had nine children with the
:17:45. > :17:50.second wife. You say, and you have written about it, how hard it was
:17:50. > :17:55.for your mother and for you and your siblings. And for the wife,
:17:55. > :18:04.the other wife, also. Is your message that cenacle can no longer
:18:04. > :18:09.tolerate that kind of lifestyle? Differs. -- that cenacle can no
:18:09. > :18:18.longer. Every country has its own specificity to go into life. But a
:18:18. > :18:21.musician and artist is just trying to fix it, to make it better for
:18:21. > :18:25.people, and help people to understand that we need to move
:18:25. > :18:31.together in the future and we have to achieve things that can help our
:18:32. > :18:38.next generation to be more Secure and more connected to the time we
:18:38. > :18:42.live in. It is fascinating. I am very aware that, for example, Fela
:18:42. > :18:46.Kuti was very political but his conclusion on some of these
:18:46. > :18:51.traditional issues was absolutely diametrically opposite to yours.
:18:51. > :18:54.Fela Kuti constantly defended what he called African cultural
:18:54. > :18:58.tradition against Western imperialism. He was a staunch
:18:58. > :19:07.defender of polygamy because he said, we should not fall into this
:19:07. > :19:14.trap of just copying the West. There is a proverb in my language
:19:14. > :19:19.that says, there is some truth that are just connected to some moment
:19:19. > :19:28.in life. Some troops are just universal. You cannot take it away.
:19:28. > :19:35.-- troops. But in my village. God there is some proof that according
:19:35. > :19:39.to the reality of the time. -- some of truth. Maybe polygamy was like
:19:39. > :19:47.that. It was something everybody was doing, not because you wanted
:19:47. > :19:54.to go with several wives in your house, but this was the way where
:19:54. > :20:01.you need to have many children who can work in the fields, for example.
:20:02. > :20:06.But now that times are changing. Times are changing and people are
:20:06. > :20:10.changing. Let's bring it back to the music business. You are keen to
:20:11. > :20:15.promote new African musicians but I wonder how easy it is to get new
:20:15. > :20:19.fee now African musicians to the forefront of the music culture
:20:19. > :20:24.across Africa? It still seems to be dominated by men. It is coming now.
:20:24. > :20:32.I feel very comfortable about that. When I see somebody like Angelique
:20:32. > :20:38.Kidjo, she is doing very well. There are some artists like Asher,
:20:38. > :20:44.and others, who are very well connected with their time because
:20:44. > :20:49.they play instruments and speak in very modern languages, like English
:20:49. > :20:58.and French. They know exactly what they are doing. The background is
:20:58. > :21:03.the traditional African music and heritage. But they are still
:21:03. > :21:08.connected to Allenby, hip-hop music. I see it like the future of African
:21:08. > :21:12.music which is very good. -- connected to R&B. But is the danger
:21:12. > :21:16.that African music will get swamped by influences from North America,
:21:17. > :21:20.Europe, you mention of the music and teapot. If you look at African
:21:20. > :21:25.MTV and some of the African music awards, they are dominated by the
:21:25. > :21:31.style of urban music which is perhaps more out of Detroit that
:21:31. > :21:38.out of Dhaka. -- hip-hop. That is right. People putting on these
:21:38. > :21:44.kinds of showers should be aware that we have something to prove in
:21:44. > :21:49.Africa. Could it be lost? Yes. Now we have ferris exports. Anybody
:21:49. > :21:59.playing music is organising themselves and taking care of the
:21:59. > :21:59.
:21:59. > :22:03.potentiality with internet and all of this. -- the area's exports.
:22:03. > :22:12.This is the responsibility first from our governments to organise it.
:22:12. > :22:18.For example, people should be thinking about how to organise
:22:18. > :22:23.people to know exactly what you are bringing out and what we have to
:22:23. > :22:30.wait from people coming. You cannot stop the fact that we have to be
:22:30. > :22:35.making some deals with the outside world. Final thought on that. There
:22:35. > :22:39.was a big fuss in 2005 in the Light Aid concert because African
:22:39. > :22:46.musicians were not at the forefront of that event. -- Live Aid concert.
:22:46. > :22:51.You were angry about that. Is the stars will be some of the world's
:22:51. > :23:01.biggest musical stars, on the level of a J C mac or Rihanna? Will we
:23:01. > :23:04.
:23:04. > :23:09.see African stars at that level of pop culture? -- Jay-Z. I am sure it
:23:09. > :23:13.will happen. The new generation of musicians are not just finding a
:23:13. > :23:17.way to make a name. They are Africa
:23:17. > :23:21.Africa. They are well aware about the potentiality that they have in
:23:21. > :23:27.between their hands and how they can make the world move with their
:23:27. > :23:34.movement themselves. And they are ready to use it. I have a nephew in