Discord behind the harmonies for artists who felt snubbed

The finale of the Africa Calling concert at the Eden Project. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty

Patrick Barkham

Monday July 4, 2005

Guardian

"Don't be surprised to see my face this way, but I'll try to give you what I can," Emmanuel Jal, a Sudanese refugee, former child soldier and rising star of African hip-hop, told his audience in Cornwall - and tried to smile.

When the 25-year-old got the call to fly to Britain for Live 8, he hoped to show millions of people "what an African can offer even when they have gone through hardship". Instead, he ended up rapping in Arabic, Nuer and English before barely 50 people in the Mediterranean dome at the Eden Project.

The hurriedly arranged Africa Calling gig was probably the most convivial concert in the world: dahlias outnumbered security staff and there was hardly a crash barrier in sight as 5,000 people swayed to a diverse bill of African beats.

But despite flying visits from A-listers including Angelina Jolie, Dido and Youssou N'Dour, the voices of Africa Calling - from the Portuguese Fado of Mariza to the soulful guitar and vocals of Ugandan Geoffrey Oryema - were hardly heard on the global TV stage.

Jal, who has topped the charts in Kenya where he is still a refugee, confronted Bob Geldof when he met him in the UK. "He said to me you have to sell more than 4m records to come and perform at Hyde Park," Jal said. "He said that people in China will not want to listen to my music because they do not know me. I like the spirit behind this - helping the poor - but when I look at him [Geldof] it looks like he is making history by using the poor people. Years ago, he helped the Ethiopians but this time he lost my respect."

Jal said he received calls from similarly disillusioned Africans. "Thousands of people will think this day is about making pop stars more famous and creating a name for themselves out of poor Africans. Africans are complaining why aren't African performers there to represent them? The idea is good but making poverty history in a concert is not going to happen."

For the audience, it was simpler. "It's their loss," said Jane Acton, 45, from Porthleven in Cornwall about Live 8's failure to schedule African bands at Hyde Park. "I'd rather be here than Hyde Park any day. There's only one or two bands there I want to see, whereas here you're getting an education and watching bands you'll never see again."

After performing Seven Seconds and Thank You with Dido, the Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour said there definitely should have been more African artists on the London bill. Although the artists, from countries including Algeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Mozambique, Somalia and Sudan, sensed they had been overlooked, they strived to make the most of their day in Cornwall.

The exiled Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo appealed for an end to dictatorship during his vibrant set, a call echoed by other African musicians who stressed the importance of rooting out their continent's corrupt leaders beyond the Make Poverty History agenda.

Peter Gabriel, who hosted the event and played a key role in assembling the bill, pointed out the role western banks and multinationals play in propping up tyrannical African leaders and called for a clean banking campaign.

Gabriel said Geldof had scored an own goal by not putting more African artists on the Hyde Park bill and suggested that the Live 8 organiser was behind the times. "I mentioned it to Chairman Bob and he was of the opinion that with billions of eyes watching the TV, unfamiliar artists from whichever country would probably switch people off. I don't agree."

But Gabriel balked at the broadcaster Andy Kershaw's phrase "musical apartheid" to describe the day at Eden. "You can harp on about tokenism and apartheid but in the end something bigger and bolder is being attempted here," he said. "You've got to forget all that shit."