Straight Outta Pikine

Unlike American rap’s obsession with money, women and crime, Senegalese hip hop deals with social issues troubling the African continent: famine, the spread of AIDS, politicians’ corruption, are favourite subjects of the hundreds of hip hop groups energizing Dakar’s evenings. MCs rapping in English, French, Wolof, at the sound of subsaharian rhythms clashing with western melodies...a cauldron of musical cultures merging in a genre that lately has been travelling all over the world. La Festa 2H (Des Aches) is one of the biggest African hip hop festival. Every year in June bands, performers, slam poets, street artists, dancers, animate the poverty-stricken Dakar’s suburb of Pikine.