![]() In his 1984 speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations Sankara describes conditions before the revolution: The neocolonial Republic of Upper Volta Sankara grew up in was subsequently one of the poorest, most illiterate countries in the world. However, political independence did not equate to freedom from a new model of neocolonial French domination. In 1960, when Sankara was 11 years-old, his country gained political independence from French colonialism. It is the duty of communists to combat this epistemic violence and celebrate the legacy of Sankara and Pan-African revolutionary socialism. While calls for decoloniality have gained currency in both academic and activist circles in the West, African leaders in particular have been at the forefront actually overthrowing colonialism through struggle, such as Sankara, tend to be either completely ignored or dismissed through the racist tropes of totalitarianism or authoritarianism. Sankara’s major contributions today are not only the historical example he set and the part he payed in the liberation of his own country and others, but also to the way he primarily expressed his political practice pedagogically. ![]() ![]() What is available is a handful of speeches laying out the basic contours of his radical analysis and non-dogmatic revolutionary vision crafted for a popular audience. However, unlike most of his peers Sankara wrote no major works for revolutionaries to study and learn from. Sankara is considered to have been one of the world’s most notable pan-African socialist revolutionaries. A charismatic yet notably humble figure, Sankara is often referred to as the Ché Guevara of Africa. Like other influential socialists of the twentieth century Sankara’s life and anti-colonial and decolonial legacy continue to inspire anti-imperialist and Pan-African youth movements across Africa and beyond. Sankara, a fierce enemy of the global system of neocolonial, imperialist capitalism (as well as all forms of bigotry and oppression), was assassinated on October 15 , 1987, just four years after the people lifted him up as the president of their new revolutionary nation-state. All sorts of cultures, including rock and roll, collided merrily in this hopeful milieu.Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara was born Decemin Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso), which, at the time, was a West African French colony. Bobo was a market center and an army town, booming, full of nightclubs and bands that catered to locals, soldiers and visitors alike. You can hear a strong Afro-Cuban influence in their music, because Latin music was huge in West Africa in the '60s. "Īmong the groups featured in the box set is Volta Jazz, one of the most prominent bands of this time. Yéyé is how French-speaking people in the 1960s and '70s talked about the era's rock n roll, especially The Beatles with their immortal refrain, " Yeah, yeah, yeah." Mazzoleni's work has culminated in a box set, which he titled Bobo Yéyé: Belle Époque in Upper Volta. The music Mazzoleni collected is described as "Bobo Yéyé." Bobo refers to its city of origin. French author and producer Florent Mazzoleni has spent years visiting that city, literally going door to door to collect vinyl records that rarely circulated beyond the country's borders. Bobo Dioulasso in Upper Volta, the name Burkina Faso went by during the French colonial period, could be described in this way. Imagine that an important American musical city, one at a crossroads of commerce and culture (say, Memphis), was unknown to much of the world. Volta Jazz, also known as Orchestre Volta-Jazz, was one of the most prominent Bobo Dioulasso bands of the '60s and '70s.
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