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Music

Music. King Ayisoba.

Kolongo is a musical genre that takes its name from a two-stringed lute of the Frafra ethnic group, between Burkina Faso and Ghana. Among its main performers is King Ayisoba, a Ghanaian musician. The artist has just released Work Hard, one of the best African albums of recent years. In Africa there is one great…

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Music. The Boom of the Afrobeats.

The music industry is experiencing the fastest global growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (+34.7%). The Spotify platform recorded 13.5 billion streams last year. The musical trend of the moment comes from Africa and is called Afrobeats. One of the genres most in vogue globally. And not just today, but for many years already. Such is the…

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Music. Tems, the Rebel.

Before long, Temilade Openiyi known professionally as Tems quickly made her way into the R&B scene. Until international recognition last February. A journey that began with the song Mr Rebel. Last February, the young Nigerian singer Tems won a Grammy (the Oscars of music) for the ‘Best Melodic Rap Performance’ category, awarded to her for…

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Music. Mdou Moctar. The Sounds of the Desert.

From the golden sands of the Sahara Desert to the renowned world of music festivals. Songs of love for his land and his people. One of the most beautiful and intense albums of last year has a title that is already a whole program: Afrique Victime. It bears the signature of Mdou Moctar, aka Mahamadou…

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Ali Birra, Icon of Oromo Music.

For over fifty years he has been the voice of this ethnic group of Ethiopia and has garnered considerable popularity. He had disagreements with Haile Selassie and with Mengistu. He died last November in Dire Dawa. Although he left Ethiopia in the 1980s and stayed away for about twenty years, Ali Birra continued to be…

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Music. Kalush Orchestra. Mamma Stefania…let me hear your voice.

In May, with their song ‘Stefania’, they easily won the latest Eurovision Song Contest and caught the attention of the world. Then, Kalush Orchestra is a new phenomenon, having been founded as recently as 2019 by rapper Oleh Psjuk together with some friends. The group takes its name from its birthplace, Kaluš, a city at…

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Music. Stromae, the Master of pop.

A heart that beats to the rhythm of Africa Paul Van Haver was born in Etterbeek, a small town near Brussels, in 1985. Yet his story really begins only nine years later, in Rwanda, where his father, an architect of Tutsi ethnicity, was killed that year during one of the most terrible genocides of the…

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Music. Lido Pimienta. To the Rhythm of Cumbia.

Mention Colombia and one immediately thinks of cumbia: a rhythm, an atmosphere, a dance, a way of singing, a synthesis of the essence of a people. A people still struggling to find a balance and social pacification between modernist and traditionalist thrusts, between terrorist regurgitations, the ever-untamed violence of drug traffickers and a complex interracial…

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Music. Ustad Saami. The Fascination of an Ancient Mystery

“The world calls me Ustad, the teacher, but I personally feel I am a Shagird, a disciple of music”. This is how Naseeruddin Ustad Saami, one of the most significant personalities in Pakistan and musical Sufism, defined himself. His songs and his music are infinitely distant from what is heard in the West; so much…

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Music. Houeida Hedfi. In the Rivers of the Soul.

Sounds with an unmistakably Arabian and Middle Eastern flavour, the sort of music that passionately involves those who hear it. There are masterpieces that germinate far from the great circuits of the music business and pop up where you least expect them. This is the case of Fleuves de l’Âme by the Tunisian musician Houeida…

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Music. Mina, ‘the veiled rapper’.

Everything was against her. Aminata Gaye – Mina ‘the veiled one’ is her stage name – was raised in a traditional Senegalese family, when she realised that music made her a self-confident person, she knew there was no way back. She started to fight for her dreams and for a better society. “I cannot be…

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Music. Fatima Said. Enchanting Voice.

Capable, beautiful and full of positive energy, the Egyptian soprano Fatma Said with her formidable voice has won her place on the most prestigious lyrical venues. Her success is also due to the efforts of her family who supported her every time the burden of prejudices and common places seemed to suggest she place her…

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Advocacy

Kenya. Mama Shamsa. “I am a mother to them”.

Faced with the violence of criminal gangs that have overwhelmed the lives of many children, the Kenyan activist opened the doors of her home, giving…

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Baobab

Maya. The Magic Town.

The ltzaes, a brave and peaceful group of Maya have been in these lands since time immemorial. They were led by a priest named Zamna, and while…

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Youth & Mission

World Youth Day. Pope Francis: “Each of us is an…

More than one and a half million people took part in World Youth Day (Lisbon, 1- 6 August).  Fragments of the Pope's speeches. “You are not here…

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