World music

Report at the 23rd edition of Africajarc, the festival of African cultures

Africajarc, the festival of African cultures, has taken place in Cajarc, in the Lot, since 1999. © RFI/Laurence Aloir

By: Laurence Aloir

3 mins

From July 21 to 24, the Africajarc festival celebrated its 23ᵉ edition, in Cajarc in the Lot, with Youssou Ndour and Keziah Jones headlining.

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Africajarc's story

During the summer of 1997, a troupe of Burkinabè and Togolese artists gave a concert in Cajarc on the occasion of their exchange with the Lycée Clément Marot in Cahors.

The schools of Cajarc, supported by a dynamic and involved parents' association, staged a play each year, large-scale cultural projects carried out over four years with professional artists.

The meeting with the Kongo Ba troupe in 1997 gave another direction to these projects: the president of the parents' association offered to welcome Anani and Akouvi Apetogbo, two of Kongo Ba's artists, in residence for a year to work with children around dance, song, rhythms and stories from West Africa.

Eight schools (four from Lot, including the two schools from Cajarc, and four from Aveyron) have taken part in this approach.

At the end of the 1998 school year, three major performances brought together 180 children on stage and 1,000 spectators for the one given in Cajarc on July 4th.

Jean-Pierre Lelubre, president of the association of parents of pupils, at the initiative of this ambitious cultural project, had succeeded in his bet: to open our rural schools to other cultural horizons.

He didn't want to stop there.

The evening of June 1998 gave him the desire and the idea to organize a festival around African cultures.

That evening, in his mind, the Africajarc Festival was already born.

1999: First edition of

, a multidisciplinary festival (music, literature, cinema, visual arts) which is therefore dedicated to African cultures.

Nestled in Cajarc in the Lot, Africajarc celebrated its 23rd edition this year, with Youssou Ndour and Keziah Jones at the top of the bill, an edition dominated by the presence of many Senegalese artists.

Since 1999, the festival has welcomed all the big names in West Africa: Manu Dibango, Angélique Kidjo, Salif Keïta, Alpha Blondy etc.

And 22,000 people came to the site from July 21 to 24.

Africajarc 2022 with Youssou N'Dour, a Senegalese edition © RFI

Our guests

Youssou Ndour, Amen Viana, Pamela Badjogo, Mariaa Siga, Defmaamaadef, David Pradayrol (artistic director), Laurent Courcelles (president of the Africajarc association) and Régis de Villefort (cajarco merchant)

Amen Viana, during the Africajarc festival.

© RFI/Laurence Aloir

Parts

Youssou Ndour

- Live in Cajarc: "Seven Seconds", "Baye Fall + "Mama Africa", extracts from the album

Amen Viana

- "Kankan Do Dji"

Amen Viana performs "Kankan Do Dji" at the Africajarc festival.

© RFI

Pamela Badjogo

- "Ngoka"

Pamela Badjogo performs "Ngoka" at the Africajarc festival.

© RFI

Mariaa Siga

- "Asekaw"

Lass

- "Bumayé"

Pamela Badjogo and Léo Bernard, videographer at RFI.

© RFI/Laurence Aloir

Video:

, RFI Videos

Sound master: Benoît Letirant

, RFI Labo

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