Jamaican Burning Spear, reggae icon, on African tour

Jamaican Burning Spear reggae icon on African tour

The Jamaican Burning Spear, a reggae monument, is currently on tour in Africa. It began in Zimbabwe on October 18 and will end in Kenya on November 2, after passing through South Africa, Zambia and Malawi. On this occasion, RFI looks back on the close links that the singer has forged with the continent over time.

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When he arrived on the African continent in mid-October, a few days before the first date of his tour in Harare, Burning Spear posted a photo on his social networks. The message has been liked more than 50,000 times, a sign that at 79 years old, this master of Jamaican reggae continues to enjoy great popularity.

And the enthusiastic welcome from the Rasta community who awaited him this time at the airport is reminiscent of the one he received in 2007 in Nairobi, when he sat among his fans to play percussion, his favorite instrument of which he always recalls the traditional role.

With Jimmy Cliff, another dean of reggaeBurning Spear is undoubtedly the Jamaican artist who has played the most in Africa during his very long career. The first time was at the Demba Diop stadium in Dakar, in 1982, a year after the death of Bob Marley. Then there was the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Burkina Faso, before finding himself in 1988 on the bill at a traveling festival in the company of Fela and King Sunny Ade, two stars from Nigeria.

This music smelled of Africa »

Nearly four decades after Hail Him, his album with the Wailers dedicated to the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, deep down he wanted to return to Africa. His last performance scheduled in the Kenyan capital, on November 2, will be highly symbolic: Burning Spear is a stage name which refers to the nickname of Jomo Kenyatta, hero of Kenyan independence.

His concert at Kenya should be the apotheosis for the Jamaican, who has been a source of inspiration for other singers in Africa, starting with the Ivorian Alpha Blondy. He explains why his encounter with the music of Burning Spear was decisive.

There was a Burnins Spear concert in Central Park: I went there, and I was immediately won over, because he had this intonation of African songs. I felt like I was in front of an Ivorian, or a Senegalese, or a Congolese singing, with a slurred accent. This music, it smelled like Africa. And I wanted to make this music which preaches love, and the love of Africa, the love of God », relates the artist at the microphone of Bertrand Lavaine.

Reggae is that: it speaks of our difficult conditions, our joys, God, the love between beings. This music was made for me.

Alpha Blondy, Ivorian singer and songwriter

Bertrand Lavaine

Also read“Tomorrow perhaps”, reggae at the top with Danakil

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