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The other night I attended two compelling documentaries about music and its powerful influence in people’s lives in Senegal and South Africa.

The first film of the evening was entitled Soweto Strings.  It covered the story of the many youth participating in the Buskaid Soweto String Project.  Soweto is defined as an urban area (read slums) of Johannesburg in South Africa.  Though thanks to the help of Rosemary Nalden, a renowned violinist from London, England, she has brought hope for the people who live there.  As for the film, it documents the struggle of each of the students and their strong desire to learn these instruments for which are all string (hence the name of the film).  From what we see Rosemary is unscrupulous in her methods, she states that she is not teaching to simply help keep them off the streets, she is teaching them so they can aim as high as they can.

For a more complete review, check out The joie de vivre of Soweto’s young musicians by Tristan Jakob-Hoff from Guardian Unlimited.

The second film of the evening was Democracy in Dakar.  It was produced by Nomadic Wax and Sol Productions, the hip hop labels of Senegal.  They wanted to share the story of the music they produced and its political influence amongst the youth in Senegal (in particular to its last two elections).

Ben Herson, the director of the film, was in attendance that evening. After the movie there was a Q&A session in which he explored topics pertaining to the current state of affairs in Senegal in politics, the direction of the music, and its fragile stability.  He referred to a man, who’s name I can not pronounce let alone remember at the moment, that was like the Senegalese version of Ghandi.  As well as being politically involved was also a poet and in this way had also influenced much of the hip hop scene in Senegal today.

Anyways I highly recommend checking both these films out.