Rapping The News In West Africa

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

A frequent challenge for news organizations is how to reach young people. Well, here's one way of doing it. In Senegal, two rappers who go by the names Keyti and Xuman offer a hip-hop version of the week's headlines. They do it in a short show posted on YouTube, and it has a huge following, especially in West Africa, where a majority of the population is under the age of 25. Here are the hosts of that program.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

XUMAN GUNAM XUMAN: Bonjour.

Yes, my name is Xuman Gunam Xuman (ph). I'm a rapper, artist, edutainer.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

XUMAN: (Rapping in French).

I created a new form of web program called Journal Rappe. We're wrapping the news in French and in Wolof. A lot of youth, they're not reading the news. They're not watching the news, but they listen to rap music. So that's why we call this edutainment. We're educating them, but we entertain them at the same time. Ignorance is your enemy. Most of the people, they think that Ebola is - Africa is Ebola. Most of the people, they think that Africa is misery. Most of the people, they think that Muslim is terrorism. So this is ignorance. Wisdom is a weapon.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

KEYTI: OK, yo, hi everybody. This is Keyti from Senegal, co-host of Journal Rappe with Gunman Xuman.

Idea basically was to take back the information. West African youth got get more into what is going on in this part of Africa. That's why I tend to think that we are representing the people. We are representing the youth. It got to be a movement and not only in music, but in journalism - the main audience is in Senegal. This last season we had like 1 million and a hundred thousand clicks.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

KEYTI: Mr. Obama, welcome back to Africa. (Rapping in French) We love America.

KEYTI: I discovered rap through Public Enemy and they forged my mentality, my perception of key things, like race, like politics. Back then we had only one regime, which was the socialist regime. There were a lot of problems, political problems. The education system was really, totally down. Rap helped a lot of us channel that anger into lyrics, into music.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

KEYTI: Check and see (Rapping in French).

Our relationship with language is really - it's funny. French is the official language. Language is something really important for a community because it defines you. We've forgotten our language, or they made us forget about our language, so we got to restore that pride of using your own language and being proud of using your own language. So that's the job we are also doing with this Journal Rappe. We shouldn't let our languages die.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

XUMAN: (Rapping in foreign language).

XUMAN: I'm just me. Once I get into my house I'm not an activist. I'm not a rapper. I'm just a simple dad. When I'm on stage I'm just having fun doing my job. When I'm out and there's something worth fighting, I'm fighting it.

XUMAN: (Rapping in foreign language).

CORNISH: Our story about rapping the news in West Africa comes from independent radio producer Jake Warga. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.