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On Senegal’s peninsula, just west of Dakar, is a neighborhood that attracts hundreds of the country’s most gifted musicians, artists and creatives.
They all meet at Africulturban, a cultural center in the neighborhood of Pikine. The man who founded it wants radical change.
«I’m fighting the system, but I don’t fight it alone,» says Babacar Niang.
The system he is referring to is poverty. It is high in Senegal, and so is the unemployment rate. The agricultural sector is the country’s largest source of employment but it’s been rocked by the unrelenting challenges of climate change.
Niang is an internationally celebrated hip-hop artist who founded Africulturban in 2006. As he walks through the corridors of the center, he is warmly greeted by young people who call him Matador. It’s a stage name as well as an alter ego that contrasts with his calm, welcoming presence.
«The matador fights the bete noir, the black beast,» he says. «The black beast, for us, is the system. I give young people weapons to combat the system and poverty.»
Those weapons are of a musical and artistic variety. They manifest as opportunities realized at Africulturban. And the foot soldiers against the system are the center’s 1,500 young members. There are more than 15 million people in Senegal and a third of them live in poverty. Climate change exacerbates these issues, particularly in the agricultural sector, where 70% of crops depend on rain, according to the World Food Program.
The challenges in the agricultural industry lend to the country’s high unemployment rate. Unemployment rates shot up between 2002 and 2006, when Africulturban was getting off the ground. The country saw the start of a steep decline in 2011 that ended in 2019. Since then, unemployment rates have been increasing again.
Paintings and sculptures line the hallways of Africulturban, and music fills the air. Members can take their pick of jazz or break dance lessons. Outside, a young man makes a drum by hand.
