Getting The News To West African Youth, Through Hip-Hop

Transcript

ARUN RATH, HOST:

When you hear about news organizations trying to appeal to a younger audience, it's simple self-preservation. If we can't get young people to tune in now, we'll be out of business in 20 years. The problem is even more urgent for my colleagues in West Africa, where a majority of the population is under 25. But a lot of those young people have started following the news through YouTube, as delivered by two Senegalese rappers who go by the names Keyti and Xuman.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "JOURNAL RAPPE")

XUMAN: Bonjour.

XUMAN: Yes, my name is Xuman - Gunman Xuman. I'm a rapper, artist, entertainer.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "JOURNAL RAPPE")

XUMAN: (Speaking French).

XUMAN: I created a new form of a web program called "Journal Rappe." We're wrapping the news in French and in Wolof. A lot of youths - 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, but wisdom is a weapon.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "JOURNAL RAPPE")

KEYTI: Yo, hi, everybody. This is Keyti from Senegal, cohost of "Journal Rappe" with Gunman Xuman. Idea basically was to take back the information. West African youth got to get more into what is going on in this part of Africa. That's why I tend to say that we are representing the people. We are representing the youth. It got to be a movement, and not only in music, but also in journalism. The main audience is in Senegal. This last season, we had, like, 1,100,000 clicks.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "JOURNAL RAPPE")

KEYTI: Mr. Obama, welcome back to Africa. (Speaking foreign language) 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 VIDEO, "JOURNAL RAPPE")

KEYTI: (Foreign language spoken).

KEYTI: Our relationship with language is really - it's funny. French is the official language. Language is something really important for a community 'cause 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 VIDEO, "JOURNAL RAPPE")

KEYTI: (Speaking foreign language).

KEYTI: 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 guy. 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.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO, "JOURNAL RAPPE")

KEYTI: (Speaking foreign language).

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