3 African musicians speak up against hate for Gay people in Africa.
Listen to Interview (2390 downloads )
3 courageous African musicians spoke to NoStrings about their personal struggles and efforts to combat homophobia with music in Africa, despite strong oppositions and death threats.
The 3 African musicians who spoke to NoStrings are Mista Majah P, a reggae artiste from Jamaica, Grammo Suspect a Lesbian rapper from Kenya, and Chisom Iheangwaram, a singer from Nigeria.
On the podcast interview, they all spoke about their personal struggles and why they decided to use music as tool to advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in Africa.
Chisom Iheangwaram who recently released an LGBT themed song in Nigeria said: “the energy and passion to advocate for gay rights in Nigeria comes from my attention to the last survey. In that survey, we had about 87 percent of non acceptance of LGBT persons in Nigeria from the score card, there is still a huge gap of non acceptance, so that’s why I keep advocating strongly”
Kenya’s first Lesbian rapper, Grammo Suspect who already has two LGBT themed singles to her credits, expressed her frustration since she came out as lesbian. She said: “my music career has been on and off since I came out of the closet and decided that I am going to use my talent to fight for LGBTIQ Rights”
Mista Majah P, a 4 times winner of the Canadian Reggae Music Award show and Jamaica’s first reggae artiste to release a full reggae CD dealing with homophobia and the LGBT experience in Jamaica, spoke about the importance of using music and social media for LGBT activism. He said: “Music is very effective to reach the masses, because everybody listens to music, and so it is a very good way of reaching people”
Homosexuality is currently illegal in Nigeria, Kenya, and Jamaica.