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SENEGAL: Omar Ka, the Franco-Senegalese humorist who terrorizes the web with his sketches.

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Omar Ka is French of Senegalese origin. He is 24 years old and he is born and lives in Meaux. He uses as a stage name “Jo_lalegende” which according to him is a character that gives the smile even bursts of laughter through humorous videos. The child of laughter highlights his continent: Africa. A sports fan, he has been playing basketball since he was 6 years old and currently plays as a national basketball player. He is also a sports animator for children in the club in the 20th arrondissement, an honor for him to be able to work with children and pass on his experience. In parallel it makes videos on the social networks. He also plays in a web African series called “Caste social” of the group Wagadou.

Ze-Africanews.com: How did you get to humor?
Omar Ka: We’re going to say that I have this in the blood because I always liked to make laugh especially my first big fan my great mother (peace to his soul) to whom I made laugh and which encourage me to do comedy unfortunately she did NOT have time to see “Jo_lalegende” born. Today all the videos are dedicated to him, it is somehow a tribute to this lady.

Since when do you make videos on Facebook but also on youtube?
It is exactly 1 year that I make videos on the networks. I’m more active on Facebook for now than on YouTube because it’s harder to touch people, but I still have my channel that I’ll start feeding it more and more. The name of the YouTube channel is Jo_lalegende.

And why did you choose these media to share your achievements?
Today 95% of the population are active on Facebook and this is the easiest way to spread messages on a large scale.

Jo_Lalegende, speaker Miss Gambia France 2017.

Among the characters you play, your parents, especially your mother often comes back in your sketches, why, and what is the bond that unites you with this great lady? An unexplained and overflowing affection? Explain us?
How do you explain the relationship I have with my mother ?! She is everything for me ! She is a woman whom I greatly respect and for which I am greatly admired by the fact that this great lady raised me alone during my childhood and I am never lacking anything but really NOTHING. She made me a man, a real man. Today my mother is the woman of my life, my confidante, my best friend. I owe him everything. But I know that whatever I do, I can never give her back what she gave me so I must never disappoint her. This is the reason for the character of the mother “Ndeye Khady”, in truth, it is my inspiration with all its more funny expressions (laughter).

What generally inspires you when you write your texts outside your parents?
I do not write my lyrics, all my videos are improvisation. I think about a theme and then I realize it naturally. For my themes, I take inspiration from my childhood memories or the news and also the behaviors of people around me positive or negative.

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If I say “Heywayeheywaye” you answer what?
Signature Jo_lalegende! Word of hook, a true nod to my country of origin that I love so much: Senegal.

Have you already accumulate how much like on your pages in social networks?
In 1 year, on Facebook I am 30 000 people who love my page and support me, and on Snapchat, I keep it secret (laugh).

Jo_Lalegende.

What is your most watched videos?
My most watched video was the one where I was doing dance imitation from different countries. I think its success is due to the fact that several countries were involved, so it hit more people.

If I tell you “Senegal”, you answer what?
My country, country of the Teranga, my roots. The country where I dream to settle and make it evolve, to bring my share in the building.

Your double culture is a tart or an asset? And why ?
Its an asset. With the French language used in my sketches, I can introduce my country to people who do not know Senegal. So I think my double culture is a real force.

You use your original language and the French language, why is it important for you to make this bridge between the two?
To be able to reach the most people outside of France, which is my country of residence in order to make my country known in the two languages ​​that I know. I have two readings of the world, a real wealth.

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Jo la Légende”, why did you choose this artist’s name?
She is a girl from my neighborhood whom I consider a little sister who gave me the name of artist. The anecdote: One day I had to go out to the restaurant with friends and I who is a fan of fashion and who loves to be well dressed, I had put myself on my 31 as they say (laugh) and suddenly when she saw me that day well undermined, to “plug” as the young people say, she cried: “OOOOH LALAAAA, that’s” Jo_lalegende “and it’s gone like that. I finally find that I carry this nickname.

Laughter is part of your life, why is it important for you to make people laugh?
I think that laughter is a drug against stress but also against any form sadness. Still, from my point of view, I think that laughter can make us forget a lot even for a short time.

How do you relate to those who follow you, comment or love your videos?
I listen to them, I always answer their private message. Sometimes there are even some who are shocked that I take the time to answer, but I find it normal because for me I must be very attentive with my followers because today if I have this status “artist” it are there for many and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for this presence. They are my FORCE.

What are your future projects?
My future projects would be, why not, to make the stage and also the cinema. And, on the other hand, continue to lend a hand to associations in order to help my sick or needy neighbors.

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ART

SENEGAL – Ousmane Sow’s massive sculptures enter the Vauban fort at Mont-Dauphin

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The monumental works depicting the battle of Little Big Horn, exhibited on the Pont des Arts in Paris in 1999, made the Senegalese artist famous. The installation has just joined the fortress in the Hautes-Alpes for at least ten years.

Muscled warriors meld, horse bumping. Sounds of the fury of battle are heard. Under the impressive curvilinear wooden frame of the old Rochambeau barracks, at the fort of Mont-Dauphin (Hautes-Alpes), is played the battle of Little Big Horn, opposing, in 1876, a coalition of Cheyennes, Sioux and Arapaho to the soldiers of General Custer’s regiment.

In thirty-five monumental sculptures, visible from 6 July, the Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow (1935-2016) celebrates the resounding victory of the fragile over the powerful. Deposited in this fortified village for a period of ten years renewable by his widow, the director Béatrice Soulé, this epic installation is well known to the Parisians who discovered it amazed, one day in March 1999, on the Pont des Arts.

The exhibition has remained in the annals with its record attendance – at least 3 million visitors in three months. «An unexpected success», recalls art critic Emmanuel Daydé, then deputy mayor for cultural affairs. For the former physiotherapist born in 1935 in Dakar, who later became an artist, it is consecration. But also, surprisingly, a swan song.

At the moment when Ousmane Sow gains international fame, the art world turns its back on him. Although he was the first African artist recognized in France, none of his successors, to whom he had paved the way, claimed it.

Mayor’s daughter supports her cause
It had all started well. In 1993, the Senegalese sculptor, who two years earlier had been on the cover of Revue noire – a quarterly magazine that revealed a number of African talents – was invited to the major five-year exhibition at Documenta in Kassel, Germany. In 1995, here he is at the Venice Biennale, which is to contemporary art what the Cannes Film Festival is to cinema. The autodidact dreams of an event in Paris.

By chance, he met Hélène Tiberi, daughter of the mayor at the time, Jean Tiberi. Who supports his cause at the City Hall. The location is easy: it will be the Pont des Arts, between the Louvre and the Academy of Fine Arts. It will take diplomatic treasures to convince these two institutions, who have not seen with a good eye the proximity of massive silhouettes imagined by an African artist.Archives «World»: Ousmane Sow questions Bordeaux and politicians

The neighbouring National School of Fine Arts, where figurative art was then taboo, is also pinching its nose. Money is missing. The Havas group had initially promised to contribute to the addition of 5 million francs (the equivalent of 1 million euros today), but its new CEO, Jean-Marie Messier, is sneaking out. Béatrice Soulé moves heaven and earth, finds sponsors and is personally indebted to the tune of 1 million francs. More here

Source: Le Monde

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ART

IVORY COAST – Every night in the world: a show that vaporizes traditional forms of direction

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“Every night in the world” was advertised on social media, with a beating drum. In fact, it piqued my curiosity. This Saturday, October 1, the show took place, at nine o’clock, at the Institut français in Abidjan. It has produced an excellent impression on the coming public in great numbers. We loved and applauded this living painting, this show of the slam poet Placide Konan and the director Alain Serge Agnessan.

If I spill my guts on this show, let’s first encourage the organizers. Apart from human imperfections of details, the show was well staged and artistically presented. It wasn’t just a play, it was better: music, choreography, slam, a game of actors that explodes, like firecrackers, at a great height and even better it told a moving story. And what a story!

Raising the curtain. A young man strapped like a bum appears. Disheveled, disordered and refreshed with alcohol, he progresses through the night and begins to exude: he begins a long speech punctuated with powerful accents. We dwell on his clothing disorder, which wearies with its complexity. It rains a light on him. The rest of the decor, vexed, is hidden in the night. He bears on his forehead the aftermath of a love that will not come again. His name is Ferdinand. Akissi, her lover, turns and dances around him, in the void. He does not see her. He calls her, she hears her; but, he cannot see her. How to fill this sudden gap between a dead and a living? How to join, to the perfection of the hereafter and here? How to dissolve two drowned of different densities? On either side of the shore, two beings challenge each other, without ever getting along, really, or really touching each other. The human being is only loneliness. Separated, detached, disjointed, he does not reach the world. Neither does the world reach him. While time has stopped running on one, it takes away the other. It draws them together without ever uniting them, without breaking the isolation. Everyone reaches out to a dream they can’t reach. Disorder of the self, panic attack in front of his impotence; a clinician could find there a new pathological vein.

Crédit photo : TROIS B

Placide, the mastodon n°1 of the slam. One of those monsters that Alain Tailly created in a few copies, plays the role of Ferdinand. He writes a poem to Akissi, a role brilliantly staged by the dancer and singer, Marcelle Kabran, his beloved whom he wants to bring back to life. Ah! This Akissi! Was she born on a Sunday or a Monday? What a ball of energy! Its use of space, the expressions of its body are worth verses. One understands the whirlwind of fire that eats its soul. Is it in order to extinguish this consuming fire that he drinks so much? He plans to put on paper a poem that will tear his beloved from the bowels of the afterlife. Vain quest for a man splendid isolated, like all poets and who begins the slow and inevitable shipwreck of the damned. In a dark setting where a dream piled up that slipped between her fingers. The excess, – and this is what makes the beauty of this spectacle -, is such that Akissi speaking to Ferdinand in a face-to-face no longer even knows that she is often unaware that she is an ethereal soul, that she is dead. His voice sounds like a sermon in a brothel. Ferdinand, I think, lies to himself. He doesn’t really want to bring Akissi back. He wants to save himself by writing. The scenography is in my mouth. I hear she generated by the same person who directed the show.

Crédit photo : TROIS B
Crédit photo : TROIS B
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ART

SENEGAL – Mame Balla Mbow performs in Paris

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Article directed with Siaka Bambam Doh Ouattara

This Saturday, September 24, 2022, in the great hall of shows and concerts in Paris, Le Zèbre de Belleville, the famous Senegalese comedian of social networks Mame Balla Mbow comes out of the virtual. After proving himself in Senegal, he organizes a One Man Show in Paris, the event capital. You will cry with laughter. If not, you will be reimbursed.

Inimitable touch-to-all, Mame Balla Mbow is an actor, humorist, comedian,… with equal success with spectators and users. He has played in hit series like Infidels, Mother Thiaba Arrest. This young man is one of the most followed Senegalese actors on social networks. He alone has the secret of this success story. He is not at his first one-man show. After the show he gave in Senegal, he does not intend to stop in such a good way. He intends to raise the Parisian public as he demonstrated at Canal Olympia and Sorano.

Born in Yeumbeul in the department of Pikine in Senegal, Balla Mbow is about thirty years old. Adored by a Senegalese fringe, Balla Mbow is one of the people who can be called influencers. Yet the man remains modest; he defines himself as a columnist and blogger. However, from a young age, he had only dreamed of becoming an actor: “From a very young age, I loved comedy. Inspiration is in my blood. I followed the great actors of the world like Jamel Debbouze. That is why I do not identify with the way comedy is done in Senegal. She’s in disguise and we highlight the feminine beauty, the screaming, and clowning. I said to myself: why not make a comedy on social networks and reach thousands of people, in other words, a new way of doing comedy’. So far, he’s done it well. His very clear positions that he serves Internet users with a touch of humour have made him a key figure in the Senegalese media scene.

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Mame Balla Mbow ©Ze-Africanews

Yet nothing predestined this young man to be fired by humour. His school curriculum is one of the most perfect. Holder of a law degree, Mame Balla Mbow is more devoted to the cause of citizens than to earn money. After his baccalaureate in 2010 that he had his baccalaureate, he had at heart to do sociology, but the voices of destiny are unfathomable. He is oriented at the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar.

When he landed in the world of humour, he succeeded in building a community very quickly. Thanks to his talent, he won the Pulse Awards in 2021 as «Facebook Influencer of the Year». All the big brands and companies are fighting for advertising campaigns like Orange, Dolima, the Ministry of Youth, Canal+, Tecno, Oumou Group, Jumia. His self-deprecating appearances pose him as a major player in the world of virtual media. This committed artist does not mince words when the opportunity to denounce a fact arises. His credibility comes from his constancy. At home, money comes in the background. Living on his job is not easy at all. He himself admits: “I am in front when I see something that is not normal. [Because] I do not carry the fights of others.

Mame Balla Mbow ©Ze-Africanews
Mame Balla Mbow ©Ze-Africanews
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