Fesman3

Dakar.

Fesman3.

Festival mundial des arrrrrrrts negres. 3.

We enjoyed our first taste of the festival in Dakar last night.

Hannah and I joined my host brother and sister at a Hip-Hop concert. At a biscuiterie. For all you non-francophones... that's a cookie factory. Yea, that's right. Hip hop concert at a cookie factory. It's a really ridiculous statement when a really ghetto rapper yells "COOKIE FACTORY!! MAKE SOME NOISEEEEEEEEEE!" It just sounds a little pathetic.

Anyway. There was a good selection of artists: Tigrm B (Sénégal), Nixx (Sénégal), Matador (Sénégal), Daara J Family (Sénégal), DJ Gee Bayss (Sénégal), Rick Ross (USA). The first three were pretty good, Daara J was amazing (I'll throw in a link for their music video) and we're still debating whether or not we saw the DJ and Rick Ross. If anyone knows him, he's not really a real artist. He simply features on many other people's tracks. And we don't think he knew where he was because he said "I wanna dedicate this track to the people of this city and this country" but never mentioned where he was, besides Africa. Someone's publicist and prepper person didn't do a good job.

Moving on. Besides music... my brother works at the cookie factory for the festival during the day, so he knows everyone there. Naturally, he tried to get us backstage to meet people. He got us passes. We jumped through a window because security wouldn't let us through the regular way. Hannah got proposed to by some old man whose greatest desire was to marry a Toubab woman. I got a dinner proposal by some guy who worked there, but I played that I didn't have my phone. So I told him he could write his number down, but he didn't have a pen. He told me to wait and went in search of a pen in order to write his number on a tissue for me (which I was never going to use), but never came back. I'm guessing pens are hard to come by at the cookie factory. Well, to no avail, we tried and tried. We finally just gave up and went back to where we were.

I had just finished texting Joleen when she showed up with Andrew and Modou Fall. We broke it down for the rest of the night... loved Daara J and had an all around fantastic evening.

Tonight: Busta Rhymes.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0dTmS3xOLc
I am officially in love with that song. Amazing harmonies... banjo... what else could you want?

Love from Africa

(Where we are all black... c'est dans le coeur... (it's in the heart)... according to our friends who made us put up our hands when the artist said "Cookie factory! Hands in the air if you love being black!!!"

miss you.

Kate