Fou Malade and GHip-Hop

Last Friday I contacted the Senegalese rapper Fou Malade ("Crazy Sick") and he was incredibly  welcoming.  He said I could come out to see him that very afternoon.  So I cabbed out to Guediawaye, a suburb on the outskirts of Dakar, and met Fou at the community arts center he has created, called G-Hip Hop (short for Guediawaye Hip Hop).  [The suburbs of Dakar, by the way, are the Senegalese equivalent of the American "inner city," in the sense that the suburbs are where you find the "at risk" youth living in poor conditions.  Only the relatively wealthy can afford to actually live in downtown Dakar, so here the "inner city" youth are actually quite priviledged and it's the suburban kids who are "at risk."]

Fou Malade may look unimposing - he's a little guy - but his raps and his activism are forceful and determined.  He explained to me that simply complaining about the flaws in the "System" is not enough - people, especially youth from poor neighborhoods like Guediawaye, need to feel empowered to create positive changes in their own lives.  It is this empowerment that the G-Hip Hop community center provides, where Fou and his crew offers rapping, grafitti, and breakdancing workshops to youth that otherwise might descend into the hopeless snares of glue-sniffing and apathy.  

The entire G-Hip Hop compound was built from scratch, brick by brick, by Fou and his crew.  It's remarkably clean - everyone who participates in the center's activities also has to chip in with the maintenance, and when I was there I saw kids watering the plants and sweeping the walkways.  There are beautiful grafitti murals on all of the walls - some were part of a collaborative project between the local community and artists from Canada and Chile.  There is a theatre where people perform concerts, slam sessions, plays and other cultural events.  Fou is still working on expanding the compound and improving the conditions of some of the buildings.  If anybody out there is looking for a sort of volunteer-cation adventure, G-Hip Hop would welcome volunteers to come and help with construction projects, and if you have any other talents to offer - in music, visual arts, theatre, I am sure Fou would welcome any suggestions for a collaborative project.  Donations to the center are also needed and would be gratefully appreciated (logistically I'm not sure how this would work but I'm sure Fou would be able to figure something out - and he speaks English.  You could contact him via one of the links below for more information). 

Here is Fou Malade's MySpace page:

www.myspace.com/foumalade

And here is the Facebook page for Guediawaye Hip Hop:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gu%C3%A9diawaye-Hip-Hop/183703801648201

And here are some photos...

A microscopic picture of me and Fou Malade - Sarren, who took the picture, wanted to make sure you could see the whole G-Hip Hop logo.

Some of the compound's grafitti.

Malick Sarr, aka "Sarren," another rapper at G-Hip Hop.  Super nice guy!

Some of the G-Hip Hop crew.  Fou Malade is in the middle with the green T-shirt.

More grafitti.

"Guediawaye," the name of their neighborhood.

 A collaborative grafitti project with artists from Guediawaye, Canada and Chile.

This translates roughly as "Rap speaks for the people to denounce the evil of the system."

Something like "Get up stand up", and I can't remember the rest - will find out and add it in later.

The grounds are kept really clean, and the plants are well tended.

Fou on the phone.

A youth theatre group rehearsing a play.  Who knows what all of those little kids in the audience would be doing if the G-Hip Hop center didn't exist?

The G-Hip Hop cantina.