Solar attracts open minded youngsters from all over Europe. Unfortunately, being open-minded and young in Europe does not make you immune to the conditioning that results from being continuously told and shown one single, simplistic story about the entire continent of Africa.
This Is Africa were at Solar to show people what we know and love about Africa, the globally tuned in, young, dynamic, contemporary urban, funky Africa that doesn't get much of a look in from mainstream media because it's not bad news and doesn't fit the narrow but comfortable story people have come to expect from Africa and so keeps being told. So we started off by asking our fellow music lovers what associations came to mind when they thought about Africa. The responses reminded us of people's surprise on hearing that Sauti Sol was a Kenyan group.
But you know what? This is what we're here for, and it only makes us more determined to keep telling our story of Africa, and to tell it better and more entertainingly.
The amount of coverage given to the "single story" is quite considerable, though, and we won't pretend to have all the answers when it comes to dislodging this fixed and narrow idea of Africa. So we're throwing open the question to you. How would you go about fighting the stereotypes of Africa that even relatively openminded youngsters across Europe hold of the continent?
