Monza puts it simply: “Say you’re a government. You win an election by an 80% majority. But if only 20% of voters participated in that election, do you really have a mandate?”
A hip hop artist, also known as Limam Kane, Monza said he realised more people in his country were attending his concerts than were attending political meetings. In that case, he felt a duty to use his platform politically.
Monza and Tahra Hembara urge their listeners to vote
When asked what languages he spoke, Monza looked incredulous. “I am Mauritanian”, he said, “I speak all the major Mauritanian languages” (translated from French). He is also working across borders with fellow musicians and producers in Senegal and elsewhere on the continent.
I heard Monza speak at the Arterial Network’s African Creative Economy Conference 2014 held in Rabat last week. The Arterial Network’s vision ‘is of a vibrant, dynamic and sustainable African creative civil society sector engaged in qualitative practice in the arts in their own right, as well as in a manner that contributes to development, human rights and democracy and to the eradication of poverty on the African continent’.
Sunila Galappatti, Commonwealth Writers
