Summary

For Didier, what is most important with his music is to send out a message: "If I wouldn’t feel free to say what I want to say, then the very reason for making music would be gone." He also points out that it is important that the musician pays respect to society and to the social context within which he is creating. To Myriam one of the most important questions to highlight is self-censorship: "Here in Senegal you can't really speak of censorship coming from the government, here people are limiting themselves, because they were educated to say certain things and not to say other things. Our education is formed by religion and tradition."

Self-censorship
Ajah avoids talking about religion. This subject is like slippery ground and although she is a Muslim, she wants to be a musician for everybody, Catholic or Muslim. Although Didier feels free to say whatever he wants, he too chooses to avoid the sensitive subject of religion because he doesn't want to hurt anybody. He says: "If I talk about religion, I talk about the political use of religion." Ajah even avoids the specific subject of politics: "Instead of criticizing politicians, I chose to talk about social issues like poverty and famine. I sing about that the salaries are not high enough, about women's situation and about the importance of children going to school. This is my way of engagement."

Taboos
"There are a lot of taboo subjects in Senegal", says Myriam. "An example is polygamy. Saying that you are against this practice would be the same thing as criticizing our religion, since it accepts polygamy." Ajah says: "Everybody knows that we live in Africa and in a Muslim country, and that we can't talk freely about every subject here. Still, in Senegal, there is an open dialogue between the different religions." Since there are certain subjects that can't be directly criticized, the musicians have to find another way of singing about them. "We create scenarios", says Myriam. She gives the example of how ALIF is rapping about polygamy: "We’re three rappers and each of us is taking the role of one of the three wives of the same husband. The wives are arguing and trying to prove that they're the sexiest and that the man loves them the most. This is how we show that it's not a good thing to marry three women and put them together in the same house, because no woman wants to share her husband with others."

Constructive criticism
"The most important thing is that the message is coming through", says Didier. "We don't want to criticize just to criticize, but we want to give constructive criticism. This is essential if we want our society to evolve."