African Festival photographed by Jyette Meilvang

You cannot sing African music in proper English Fela Kuti The beauty of African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad tale. Nelson Mandela I’ve got to where I am in life not because of something I brought to the world but through something I found - the wealth of African culture. Hugh Masekela One good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain. Bob Marley I delighted in the music of Africa, the earliest of the slave plantation songs, the transformation into Christianity and all that Christianity brought to the lives of the Africans who were forced to come to America. Harry Belafonte American audiences don’t react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here. Rokia Traore African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West. Miriam Makeba