Despite visa restrictions, the Africolor festival celebrates the creativity and diversity of African musical culture

The 35th edition of the Africolor festival began a week ago in Île-de-France, with, as every year, artists from the entire African continent, from Mali to Tanzania. This year, government instructions to no longer issue visas to Burkinabè, Malian and Nigerien nationals weighed on the organizers.

It’s a fact, African electronic music has made a place for itself in European festivals, with South Africa as the epicenter in recent years. But the spectrum is much broader today, as the director of the Africolor festival, Sébastien Lagrave, explains: “On the continent. There are other things happening in neighborhoods, in cities. I’m obviously thinking of electronic music from Tanzania, from Dar-es-Salaam, zingeli which is exploding and conquering the entire sub-regional market. There are also things happening in Sudan, on the Kenyan coast and the Swahili coast. So it vibrates everywhere!“

The Ile-de-France festival, for example, welcomes the Wamoto Music Band, a female zingeli group, reflecting the training workshops for women that the festival runs in Tanzania in particular.

Culture victim of tensions

However, West Africa is not forgotten: Nahawa Doumbia, Manu Sissoko, Boubacar Traoré, so many representatives of a Mali today under cover. Because at the beginning of August, Sébastien Lagrave had to rebuild his programming following instructions from the Quai d’Orsay to no longer grant visas to Malian, Nigerien and Burkinabe nationals, in the wake of the installation of regimes hostile to Paris in these countries.

Cultural circles were moved by this, and the Ministry of Culture put in place exemptions. “It’s good, but it remains in a derogatory mode, worries Sébastien Lagrave, and therefore we do not return to common law. And it’s true that we can’t be satisfied with that. What about music students, art students, all those who are the artists of tomorrow, who are the decision-makers of tomorrow and who are the leaders of tomorrow in these countries?“

“What is terrible, what is sad, what is desperate, is that obviously this state relationship is broken.”

Sébastien Lagrave, director of the Africolor festival

at franceinfo

Culture victim of geopolitics, but a perception which is also changing, and could complicate very old relations between France and West African musicians: “We must not act as if the powers in place in these countries were isolated and as if the population did not support these projects. In fact, it is true that a certain number of artists from these countries adhere to the project proposed by these people because it is a look of national pride. From this point of view, perceptions are not the same between what we perceive here and what we perceive in the countries“. In the meantime, Africolor, as for the last 34 years, intends to celebrate African artists and their inexhaustible creativity.

Africolor Festival in Pantin, Montreuil, Bondy, Saint-Denis, Clichy-sous-Bois etc… Until December 24.