AfricaPress-Tanzania: A TEAM of Hip Hop Asili gurus led by FID Q, whose real name is Fareed Kubanda, teaming up with French Embassy in Tanzania are rolling out six festivals aimed at promoting local artists and giving them a platform to showcase their talents.
Making the revelation in Dar es Salaam on Monday, Head of Development Co-operation and Cultural Arts at the embassy, Cecile Frobert said it is part of their policy to promote artists, because apart from entertainment they have educative and good messages to the public.
“In their artistic work, we find them passing messages which empower women and fight gender based violence. “It has been the history of France to promote cultural work and that is why back home, we also had some famous people like Claude Monet, who was arguably the most famous French artist of all time.”
“His waterlilies are famous throughout the world and are studied in elementary schools globally,” Frobert said.
“The objective of the Hip Hop Asili Festival is to promote the value of Art and expression of empowering the youth to engage their gifts in a way that uplifts them and become furnished with hip hop skills. “The festival will be a great opportunity to link young artists with the best managers, producers, beat-makers in Tanzania with the best French Hip Hop entertainers, because our vision is to create peace building platforms, which empower and unify people from diverse communities, and in doing so amplify and create awakening of the youth voice in Tanzania.”
On his part, FID Q said the six festivals, which started last month will continue in May this year in Dodoma, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Mwanza and Morogoro regions, adding: “These 6 competitions will be presided over by FID Q and will select the best upcoming hip hop artistes, dancers, rappers, beat boxers, DJ, Graffiti artistes, street wear artistes among others to showcase the richness of Hip Hop culture in Tanzania.”
With climax to be celebrated on 25th-27th June this year, he said the festival co-organized by “We Present,” French NGO has been working with rappers from East Africa for a decade now.
“France well known Hip Hop artists (producers, rappers, beat boxers, dancers and sound engineer) will perform during the three days and will also contribute to workshops for up-coming artist.
