In Ivory Coast, slam poetry – this type of poetry chanted in a rhythmic manner – has been in vogue for several years. The country, which has more than two hundred slam poets, also won the world championship in Paris last May. On the evening of Saturday, July 6, one of the pioneers of this discipline performed on the stage of the French Institute in Abidjan. Bee Joe is his stage name.
2 min
With our correspondent in Abidjan, Abdoul Aziz Diallo
” A long time ago, my father told me: Son, be careful who you keep.… »
For more than an hour and a half, Bee Joe plays a series of songs, some twenty texts, sometimes melancholic and committed.
Through slam, Bee Joe speaks to young people. He invites them to work and not to give up, no matter the difficulties. He also challenges politicians and urges them to keep their promises.
In short, Bee Joe does not hesitate to say out loud what others think quietly.
” Around me, there is so much pain and difficulty. We are witnesses to our history, to our prison and so we can only translate what we live, what we see. We are lucky to be on stage. We can only carry the difficulties that we ourselves also live because we feel it, we see it, we say it.. »
For over three decades, Bee Joe has used his pen and voice to denounce the failings of society. Through slam, he takes his audience into a world where words are king.
Flora is a student: “ It was really incredible, it transported us out of the room. It made us travel. The mind was not there because we were thinking about the lyrics at the same time. We were living in the moment, in fact. »
Bee Joe does not intend to stop there. He plans a tour in the coming weeks in order to spread his love for slam.
Read alsoSlam, an essential artistic genre in Abidjan