Abidjan is a beautiful city, and MASA is a major festival , a place where musicians from all over this diverse and fascinating continent can come together in showcasing the expression, dignity, pride and music of this continent.

"There are many traditions and ethnic groups in Cote D'Ivoire and Africa in general," tells Boni Gnahore. "Each tribe must have, its interior movement, its way of seeing, its inspiration, its energy. These energies fuse together to form an African tradition and with the different languages there is such a diversity in Africa. Our work as an artist it is to put these things together. We try to only find the elements that unite to create an equilibrium of energy in Africa."

The venue for the MASA, the country of Cote D'Ivoire is itself a much varied place. There are 15 million people in the city of Abidjan, only 8 of which are Ivorians. And they comprise of sixty distinct ethnic groups.

Music is central to many religious, ceremonial and healing practices, and this importance hasn't died with time, it is still central perhaps only slightly modernised - and the importance of the griot pervaded the entire MASA gathering. No longer to be a griot is a birth right, nor a restricted ceremonial giving in your village, the musicians have strongly taken on the responsibilities of the people, creating awareness to all the subtle difficulties in Africa and pushing the general consciousness into a position that will hold and nurture the hopes and aspirations of the future generation.

"The true destination of the artist, the path itself, is one of meetings, exchanges," says Boni Gnahore.
Th MASA festival is amusicians village with musicians from all over Africa enjoying a relaxing day on te beautiful Abidjan Riviera sharing opinions, ideas and inspiration.

"When a president comes to the village, there is music, when you marry or die there is music. There is a strong culture, it is a factor of unity in Africa," tells Cameroonian drummer Eric Alania.

"I," says Oumou Soumare, "sing for the emancipation of the woman. Formerly, the woman did not have the right to learn, they did the housework, went to the field's, occupied the husband and the children but today that changes. One sees women ministers, judges. In Africa it is hard for the women, they have to wake at 4 hours in the morning, they prepare the breakfast and amend the fields for the men and help them to collect and then they return and bring the lunch, then they will cut wood, transport it, look after the children. The woman is practically never at rest, it is difficult."

"The evolution is necessary," says Eric Aliana. "Even if the tradition is used it should be given an international dimension. The international world can learn from African stories and let them learn from ours."

"The Zouglon music was created in the university cities," tells Magic System producer Angelo Kabila. "The students danced for saying one suffers, one is hungry. Through humour, one sensitises everyone with the reality of the day."

"The message is most significant. When the message is heard, one can dance," says Angelo. "

As Mohammed Ali used to say, “African's know how to sing about real issues,” and it is those “real issues” that bind us together in culture, tradition, expression and pride. And that is the beauty of MASA, it brings many of these traditions across music, dance and theatre together in one gathering.

There were many exciting, fascinating, unique traditions - the colourful dance collective Lego from Madagascar, illustrated how that region shares so many similarities with South African mbaqanga. And from Benin there was an acapello group that could well have got their training from Ladysmith Black Mambaso. How did those similarities develop? What is the shared experience of these expressions?

Mbalax, Manding, Makossa, rumba, zouk and zouglon comes together in this gathering in an incredible celebration of the power of African music to unite different countries and ethnicity?s.

But, even though the ideals of this event were so beautiful, the differences imposed by language came back to haunt us. Jabu Khanyile apparently walked out of the Kora awards because it was all in French - and he as an English speaking African felt isolated. At MASA all the conferences were held in French and when an English speaking African asked in broken French what about the other linguistic groups from Africa, the journalist sitting next to her scathingly suggested she learn French because Africa is a French continent!

A very ironic situation and one that seriously needs to be addressed in the light of African unity and utilising African music to unite this continent and or to export to a global audience. The global community is a multi-lingual community and so too is the African and this needs to be catered for. As a result of this and as a result of the continuation of the great barriers of communication that has haunted the development of Africa, the music and representation of African countries suffered. There was not one group from the Southern regions of Africa and not one from Lusophone Africa. Nigeria was represented only by the showmanship ofLagBaja whilst the offering from Tanzania was beautiful and significant.