Ken Aicha Sy
Giving the World to the Artists and the Artist to the World
Ken Aicha Sy is, in her own words, a mother, a manager, a producer and kind of a blogger. She runs a record company, several websites and her backyard is one of Dakar’s hottest creative hubs. She’s a woman on a mission, and her mission is two-fold: Making Senegalese people aware of Senegalese art, and then to take that same art and give it to the world.
RU
You went to design school in Paris before moving back here in 2010. Did they ever talk about Senegalese art ?
KAS
Ru
KAS
I do it for love. Artists have a lot of problems and a lot of them don’t have the money for, you know, communication and coaching. And I want us, as a country, to value our artists. When I got back here, I started to discover my country again. And all of a sudden, I realized how many artists there are that my generation don’t even know about. All the diversity, all the beautiful things they do – and nobody puts them in the light. I see the artist as an ambassador for the people. So the people should know them, because they’re working for the people. I decided to give the world to the artists and the artists to the world. Wakh’Art means speaking about art and that’s what I do. It’s a bridge between Senegalese artists and it’s a bridge between the Senegalese cultural scene and the world. But it’s not just a website or a network, it’s also an association for creating projects for young people.
«We have to have art in our society to have equilibrium, or people will go crazy.»
Ru
KAS
Yes. It’s called WAM. We felt there was no label in Dakar that shares our values. Today we have eight different artists on the label. Pop music, jazz, afrobeat, hip hop. Our goal is to give these artists a career that lasts. You know, not today or tomorrow, what do they want to do in maybe ten years? We do production, distribution, booking, all the work. And the artist gets to keep 70% of the money. I don’t see any other enterprise that does that.
Ru
KAS
I’m doing an exhibition in Berlin during the fall of 2019. It’s called Badaaye, future in Swahili, and it’s kind of a triptych connecting Afro-Futurism, fashion and design. It has a photography part and a video part where I interviewed three women and three men about Afro-Futurism and other questions about the future. I’m also trying to start a program for management in the cultural business. We don’t have a program for learning how to be a manager or a producer in cinema or music. I want to share my knowledge and we need teachers because we need to have people with vision and skills to really develop the industry.
Ru
KAS
Ru
KAS
Education. We have to give the people the keys to understand creation and creativity. So, education for the human being, education for the society and also education for the artist. education and stability. The artist is often alone here. We actually know that many Senegalese artists die alone of sickness, after all they’ve done for the country and people. That is not the way it should play out, not at all. That has to change.
