November 5, 2023
Home About About the Editors Contact Us Press
K Dot is making his mark on the world of music yet again.
According to Variety.com, Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free‘s company, pgLang, is teaming up with philanthropic organization Global Citizen to create a major music touring circuit across the continent of Africa.
The initiative’s kickoff event Move Afrika: Rwanda, is slated to take place Dec. 6 with Lamar as the headliner.
Additionally, over the next five years, pgLang has committed to curating more “Move Africa” shows, with an expansion to producing shows in Rwanda’s neighboring countries by 2025.
To quote from Variety.com:
“Global Citizen has been operating on the continent since our very inception,” says Global Citizen co-founder and CEO Hugh Evans, whose organization is renowned for its all-star consciousness-raiser concerts. “We were honored to be there to celebrate Mandela’s 100th anniversary in 2018, alongside Beyonce and Jay Z and so many incredible artists.
The CEO noted that Lamar has a history with his org that goes back to first performing at a Global Citizen Festival back in 2016. “I sat down recently with Kendrick and the pgLang team, and whether it’s Kendrick, Dave Free, Anthony or their entire team, they all share this massive passion to see that touring across the entire continent would become as prolific as it has become across Latin America, across North America, across Europe, across Australasia and across so many other continents.
“pgLang are going to be involved in every aspect of this initiative. They’re going to be involved from a musical curation point of view, helping to determine which artists are involved following in Kendrick’s footsteps. But they’re also going to be involved creatively as well, thinking through the creative rollout of the campaigns over the years, the look and feel, and the global broadcast. They really have become partners in this endeavor. And personally, I can’t think of anyone better on the planet than Kendrick Lamar and pgLang to be the curator. Kendrick has spent so much time on the continent himself; he’s so passionate about it. So when they said that the first performance that he does on the continent will be with Move Afrika, it’s a huge honor for this initiative.”
“The most exciting thing, honestly, is the hunger I see from the artist community to achieve this dream. I don’t think this is Global Citizen’s dream per se; I think this is the world’s dream,” he says. “I think everyone has dreamed of doing this, and we’re just working to modestly try to create some scaffolding around it. In fact, probably not a week goes by when I don’t speak to an artist about their dream to do more across Africa.”
To learn more about Move Afrika, including how to obtain tickets for the December show, go to this Global Citizen page, or via text on WhatsApp at +250 790 008 555.
Published in International, Music, Organizations, Philanthropy and Reggae/World
Enter your email address to get all the latest GBN news posts and updates delivered directly to your inbox!