By: Nyima Sillah
Organizers of the annual musical festival, Freedom Concert Gambia will hold the 4th edition of the concert today, Thursday, the eve of the country’s Independent and is meant to preach the language of love and unity.
On this edition, Nyima Sillah has a pre celebration chat with the officials of Freedom Concert –Gambia on the significance of the day that will bring together over 25 Gambian artists to perform.
Read more about the chat centered on the celebration.
The Voice: Why Freedom Concert?
Ronald Senghore: Basically, the event is meant to celebrate our independent. We realized that before and on Independent Day there is little or no Independent celebration in the country.
So, we saw it fit to organize an event before the day and for this edition the artists will be preaching the language of love, unity, diversity, as we will also put our feet on ground and stand against ethnic violence, tribalism through the use of music poetry words to spread good messages about Gambia Our Home Land.
Also, engaging young people to transmit messages that young people need to hear is encouraging and that is the reason we came up with this initiative for the 4th edition of Freedom Concert. We had a small break because of Covid-19 and we missed out on one edition but today is expected to be very successful.
The Voice: Do you think The Gambia is free for us to celebrate freedom?
Ronald Senghore : When you talk about freedom you can look into different things, there is financial freedom, there is freedom from war and so many things but just the mere fact that we can wake up every day and we are not hearing gunshots, is something worth celebrate.
Though, it is not all green in The Gambia, the country is still struggling. There is wide spread of corruption and problems but coming up with the Freedom Concert and celebrating freedom is a means of telling people especially young people that we can be free from corruption, police brutality and so many things. So that’s why we are celebrating freedom by using young people to spread love, spread the message that we can make it in the country and putting Gambia forward also means freedom is in the minds.
The Voice: Since inception, what impact has the celebration made on average Gambians?
Ronald Senghore: It is an event that a lot of young people look forward to every year and other artists usually come but they don’t charge us to play. They all do it for free because at the end of the day they are contributing their quota to the national development. The artists spread positive messages and that is more important.
The Voice: How many artists will be performing?
Ronald Senghore: Twenty-five artists would perform within the KM region, upcoming artists and established artists as well and some DJ’s.
The Voice: What does the celebration mean to the Gambian people in this inflation situation, poor health delivery service and rules of law?
Ronald Senghore: Politicians will always be politicians no matter what, it is not something that we can take away but no matter how the country is governed it lies on the people. When price hikes happen with increments of basic commodities, you don’t always blame the government at some point.
Sometimes it is us as people that deliberately drive the prices up. We have to be our brother’s keeper, we have to help and move the country. Having the ability to contribute to the development of your country is very important.
Thus, economically it’s tough in this country and the government needs to put a lot of effort in making sure that they try to solve the problem of poverty and unemployment, especially within youth. We just need to put the right people in the right places and support the young people that recently graduated and mix with some of the old school.
The Voice: What’s your final message to people out there?
Ronald Senghore : I would like to thank the entire team of Freedom Concert in the country and outside and the media team. I want the entire country to come at 8pm. There will be performances till midnight it is going to be a historic event, so let’s do this for the Gambia.
Alongside with Ebrima Saidy
The Voice: What is going to be different in this year’s celebration?
Ebrima Saidy: We are going to have more artists that would be performing and also focusing on assisting the upcoming artist.
We usually do that every year but this year we have over ten upcoming artists so the whole point is to promote these musicians and give them the platform to showcase their talents.
The Voice: The pandemic is still within us. How will these celebrations be done in line with Covid-19 principles?
Ebrima Saidy: We thought about that because last year it did not take place due to the pandemic, so this year too it is holding amid the pandemic but the omicron is not as deadly as previous variant and we have not seen a lot from the authorities regarding Covid-19.
There are so many concerts happening so we people to have their facemask and hand sanitizers to protect themselves and others around them, though we didn’t make this a because it is an outdoor event. Our only measure that we are putting in place is the security of the people.
The Voice: Since the start of the event, have you got any support from the government, NGO’s and individuals?
Ebrima Saidy : From the part of the government the Police give us the permit, we have support from Africell other companies and this year our sponsors are Africell, FatuNetwork and R and A.
The Voice: What are some of the challenges that you face since the establishment of Freedom Concert –Gambia?
Ebrima Saidy: We faced a lot of challenges because it costs money to have the sound system give refunds to artists and the permit, also getting sponsors is another challenge for us.
