Exhibition - Beyond Development: Local Visions of Global Poverty

Keyti: Wutikat/Go Getter

With all of Senegal’s cultural, political and economic life centred in Dakar, the capital city of the country had, since decades, set itself up for overpopulation. Situated on 83 square kilometres, Dakar alone claims 23.2% of Senegal’s 14 million population and is now notoriously plagued by unemployment, insecurity and an ever-growing poverty that the numerous new buildings on the seafront or the highways emerging from the ground can’t hide anymore. Wutikat (meaning go getter) is a film about a woman and a man, respectively 41 and 37, a street food vendor and a taxi driver who are refusing their ordeal and standing up to survive in Dakar by any means for their dignity.

Keyti’s name is associated with the beginnings of hip-hop in Senegal since he is part of the first generation that established the genre as a means of contestation for the Senegalese youth. After more than 15 years going on stage, Keyti is nowadays more active into educational programs for young marginalized people like YUMA (Youth Urban Media Akademy) working with juvenile ex-convicts. All the while he has launched a successful online news bulletin with another wellrespected rapper, Xuman, called Journal Rappé. Delivered in music and in rhymes, Journal Rappé’s main goal is to encourage young Senegalese to engage into politics more, and puts forward ideas of good governance, participative democracy and citizenship, youth education, etc. Keyti’s Journal Rappé has garnered millions of views online and has been replicated in many African countries. Outside his music activities as co-founder of Journal Rappé, Keyti is also known for his commitment to education, especially with marginalized groups like juvenile convicts. He has worked on the Prison Tour, a creative program involving creative writing courses for detainees in the prisons of the capital city of Dakar. From to 2014 to 2017, he is also mentored and taught French and English to juvenile exconvicts through the Youth Urban Media Akademy (YUMA) project with Africulturban.