Senegal Hip Hop: "We are the voice of the voiceless"

"We are the voices of the voiceless," says the rapper known as Ngoom Doom, half of Rawu Street, "For us that is hip-hop."

The rappers — and their fans — have their roots in Futa Toora, a once-fertile stretch of land along the Senegal River, some 150 miles from Dakar and not far from the Sahara Desert. Since the 1980s, rainfall has been steadily decreasing in this region. Many of the farmers along the river moved to the capital in search of a better life. They settled in sandy lots just outside the city, crowding into cement houses in walled compounds with their extended families and their goats.

In the neighborhood of Guediawaye, people cope with blackouts and flooding from the poor drainage. The children of the migrants grew up seeing their parents struggle and soon were struggling themselves. There aren't enough jobs for the new generation.

Hip-hop gives the men a way to express their frustrations. They spit their anger into microphones and shout their lyrics into the sea of the audience.

"Same cats, same dogs / same electoral promises / it's only two years and we're already fed up." That's the lyrics to "Diogoufi," which means "nothing has changed" in the local Wolof language. It's written by the group Keur Gui — Wolof for "home."



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