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| George The Poet |
After Empire is a stand alone series, where George pieces together fragments of the African and Caribbean independence struggles by looking through the 60s, 70s and the 80s to really understand what happened between the time his parents were born and the time he was born, that led to Black life being in the condition he finds it in.
How the chapter came about
The chapter was inspired by the previous chapter about Black Liberation and music, so the remaining information from that chapter is how After Empire came to be. (Shout outs to whoever is responsible for research on George’s team! You are who you think you are, and not only for this, but for the entire podcast; it is comprehensively researched.
This chapter felt like a riveting African history lesson combined with dope music and poetry, and most importantly, compelling storytelling. One thing about African History, is, you can never know enough nor get enough of it.
The chapter was inspired by the previous chapter about Black Liberation and music, so the remaining information from that chapter is how After Empire came to be. (Shout outs to whoever is responsible for research on George’s team! You are who you think you are, and not only for this, but for the entire podcast; it is comprehensively researched.
This chapter felt like a riveting African history lesson combined with dope music and poetry, and most importantly, compelling storytelling. One thing about African History, is, you can never know enough nor get enough of it.
The chapter was released in 2023, and true to its essence, mixes spoken word and music to unpack pertinent issues. Here some intriguing nuggets from the chapter to ponder on:
On Congo’s highly sought-after resources and the parallels between Africa’s minerals and Africa’s art:
"Music isn’t the only thing Congo produces that’s in high demand across the world, Congolese soil is so rich, and so many minerals softer scales; it keeps outsiders coming in and insiders running things outside the reach of the government. We can’t pretend its just a Congolese thing. All of us rely on minerals from the region. From batteries and phones, to factories and homes, Congo’s got supplies that we cannot leave alone. This addiction has cost a lot of Congolese lives and overtime, the scale of the tragedy has grown. Millions of people displaced, all because the people want a piece of this place. Kids born into mining can’t even escape, and the richest companies want to keep it this way. This horror story has been so consistent; you can’t even call it a broken system, it’s a balance of power between the ones that make all the big decisions - this is the system."
How colonisation wasn’t meant to unite us:
“See, even though Africans share a continent, in a lot of ways we’re kept apart. Colonisation wasn’t meant to unite us. If anything, it set us off on separate paths. Now if you need an illustration of this, you ain’t got to look far, check the arch, mainstream African music has an overall standard that tends to feature colonial language. Couple of episodes ago, I walked you through some Congolese music history. Those guys were pioneers and why they’re not at the forefront of Afrobeats is a mystery. The commercial performance of our music depends on the ability to speak the right European language. It’s almost as if capitalism is tied up in colonialism."
Akon as a case study and how globally, the biggest records have always been English-speaking:
"Akon ain’t new to the game, he’s been around. He found fame as a singer in America but he was born in former French colony, Senegal. Akon is an interesting reflection of the African and Western intersection. From the start he described himself as African but that wasn’t the packaging that took him to platinum. He came across like a Black American, the most prominent singer with that much melanin. When his first album dropped, and from what I remember, it didn’t take long to learn about where the singer came from. No African was as big as Akon. One minute he could be in the club with women and the next minute he could be in the streets with warriors. Either way, his run in the industry was glorious. But he made his money off an English-speaking audience. No judgement, I’m the same. Capitalism is a numbers game. And if the numbers favour Western languages, are diaspora artists really the ones to blame? There’s something to contemplate, colonialism made us the wrong template; African markets can limit African artists even when they’re growing at a constant rate. So we sing in these Western dialects in whatever genre will impress the buyer’s next, in the hope execs and investors might invest, and that’s how we end up on a gentrifying flex. The truth is, Western capital expanding into merging markets only really benefits certain artists. Sometimes it benefits the ones who work the hardest but rarely those in the harshest circumstances. So why don’t African youth in the street just rise up an pattern a new industry? "
On Michael Manley’s attempt at trying to give Jamaica social democracy, how he reimagined the Global South to redefine its place in the global economy, and his mistake on taking the IMF loan to bail out Jamaica in 1977:
"Can you see it, the pattern across the origin stories of the countries we’ve looked at in chapter 4; is all slavery and resource extraction? Maybe the West’s success is less complex than Margaret Thatcher thought. Maybe the secret to Western success is the fact that they’ve extracted the best from the rest; the best resources, the best human beings, nothing but the best for the West Europeans. Combine that with fighting for trade routes and combine that with some scientific breakthroughs, combined with more and more energies into colonisation over four centuries, that’s a lot of money."
On the West taking advantage of the global recession:
"Poor countries were facing rising debt, they needed cash, as a matter of life and death. This kicked off the cycle of the West weaponising debt through the IMF. Fifty years on from Jamaica’s IMF loan, inequality across the Island has grown, the rich have gotten richer, but the poor have gotten poorer. Yet Jamaica is celebrated as a top performer; that’s because the West rewards systems; doesn’t applaud developing countries for offering their people the best support system. Every government has the right to make mistakes in pursuit of a better life for its people, but the cost of failure shouldn’t be the loss of sovereignty."
If you have not listened to this chapter, these excerpts are a mere highlights, head over to BBC Sounds to listen to George's compelling innovative podcast <here>.
On the West taking advantage of the global recession:
"Poor countries were facing rising debt, they needed cash, as a matter of life and death. This kicked off the cycle of the West weaponising debt through the IMF. Fifty years on from Jamaica’s IMF loan, inequality across the Island has grown, the rich have gotten richer, but the poor have gotten poorer. Yet Jamaica is celebrated as a top performer; that’s because the West rewards systems; doesn’t applaud developing countries for offering their people the best support system. Every government has the right to make mistakes in pursuit of a better life for its people, but the cost of failure shouldn’t be the loss of sovereignty."
If you have not listened to this chapter, these excerpts are a mere highlights, head over to BBC Sounds to listen to George's compelling innovative podcast <here>.