DISCOnnections: Popular Music Audiences in Freetown, Sierra Leone

18. The king and his followers

 18 The king and his followers During the weekend right before Christmas, a popular local artist (though, living in the US) performed two shows on two consecutive nights in two different venues – for two fairly different audiences. I attended both shows. In this chapter I give two in-depth descriptions of both events. Subsequently, I will juxtapose and contrast the, on the one hand, timely and musical proximity and connectivity of the two events with the pronounced social differences and dis-connectivity inscribed into the shows contexts and conduct. I begin with the first concert, which took place on a Friday night in Freetown’s biggest music venue: the national stadium. Extravaganza Together with crowds of thousands of people, we shove our way towards the stadium’s main entrance gates. It is past midnight. Beside the little oil lamps with which the roaming street vendors illumine their goods, the only lights flicker from two halogen lamps. They indicate the way. One lamp shines above the only opened ticket desk, the other above the closely-guarded entrance gate. Sweating police officers wave around improvised batons made of branches and command people senselessly from one crowded spot to the other. Despite their aggressive demeanor, the atmosphere is peaceful. The crowds rejoice in excitement and some sort of incipient solidarity. We all came here for the same purpose: to take part in the “biggest hip hop concert ever in Salone”, as placards all around town were promising us for weeks. Tonight’s show is an annual highlight. “The king of Freetown”, as Kao Denero is usually referred to by his followers, is coming to town. And it will in fact turn out a very big concert. Some thirty thousand mainly young people attend the show; a number with which only “spiritual restorations” led by Nigerian televangelists can compete with in Sierra Leone. Chapter 18: The King and his followers 189 Kao Denero (Amara Turay) is an indisputable part and parcel of Freetown’s social imaginary; a modern cultural hero. In the mid-1990s, while still being in high school, Kao was amongst the first Sierra Leonean artists who started to rap. In today’s perception of many young Freetonians, he basically invented hip hop music in Sierra Leone. This perception, and his popularity, is inextricably linked with his personal history. As the AFRC took over in 1997, Kao, still a pupil, migrated to Pennsylvania, United States, where he is living until today. With this change of residence, his image converted from an early local forerunner of a new music trend originating from the US to an embodiment of this very trend and its concomitant imaginary of a new lifestyle. Kao is a contemporary epitome of Freetown’s long-standing cultural orientation towards the (black) Atlantic world. The two most common denominators used by his fans, “The King of Freetown” and “Kao the King”, are telling hallmarks of the transnational, trans-Atlantic setting his image and appeal are grounded in. The fact that Kao resides in the US state of Pennsylvania, and not in Freetown, is to be considered a reason for his “kingship” rather than contradicting the foundations of his title. Also, it explains his vast appeal after the thorough post-election downturn of Freetown’s local popular music. Neither is Kao a local nor a foreign, or “global”, musician. He embodies and transcends both categories simultaneously – a “glocal” artist perched in the (black) Atlantic. Above-introduced omalanke boy Jinnah, who, as many if not most of my informants, made a great effort not to miss the concert, gave me the following explanation for his adoration of Kao which he, tellingly, contrasts with his dislike for (other) local artists: I am not fond very much of our artists. I love the American artists. But our artists, they are not in the same syllabus. They don’t reach there. I compare the music and the Sierra Leone artists, they are not grammatical. But American music, I love it. And Kao – he is our King. He makes the music I love. Like “Baby Luv”, hip hop, R&B. That is a song by Kao Denero – King of Freetown. Kao is a big artist. He won a big award in America. He knows how to sing. He is living in America, in Babylon. He is the King of Babylon. No artist for Kao Denero in Sierra Leone. In his music, which Kao sings in a blend of Krio, a sort of a clichéd African American English, and...