This is the first page I've created that features only photographs from inside the Norris Theater. While living in the west African country of Senegal, Ben Herson became intrigued with the use of rap music to promote polital and social change, a phenomenon that propelled the election of Abdoulaye Wade in 2000.
Collaborating with creative friends, Ben founded Nomadic Wax to explore and document the power of underground African music as a vehicle for social change. He brought Nomadic Wax to Proctor this weekend as we observed Martin Luther King's legacy.
On Friday night, the whole school gathered for a hip-hop concert featuring Senegalese rappers. As the evening progressed, the crowd closed in on the performers on stage.
Ben noted that American rap descends from the oral tradition of call-and-response that survived the slave trade, and slavery itself. The introduction of hip-hop into African culture, therefore, is the completion of an artistic circle that began with the capture and trade of human chattel in west Africa hundreds of years ago.
The role of hip-hop in Senegalese politics is remarkable. While American rap lyrics glorify violence, crime and sex, none of this was possible in Senegal, due to cultural and religious (Muslim) traditions. Elders must be honored and promiscuity is deemed sinful, so lyrics decrying poverty and politcal inertia filled a vacuum.
In short, the Wade regime failed to bring the change that was promised in 2000. So, the elections of 2007 provided a rich setting for competing, underground musical positioning. Thirteen candidates vied for votes that would place them into an anticipated run-off election between the two highest qualifiers. Nomadic Wax's documentary film "Democracy in Dakar" is a series of shorts--interviews and raps by underground artists and observers.
Shockingly, the results of the February 25 election made a run-off unnecessary, as the incumbent Wade miraculously secured a majority of the popular votes.
All of the calls for change had failed, as voters opted for stability. A sense of national despair followed.
While the role of hip-hop as an agent for social change in Senegal is beyond question, it failed--at least in 2007--to do something that the folk and gospel movement achieved in the United States in the 1960s.
