Twenty-two years ago, Papa Wemba and Youssou N’Dour made the music world bend the knee when they dropped their joint album So Why? The concept of the album was to unify Africa after the massive tribal genocide throughout Africa. The song I couldn’t get out my mind from this album is the title track, ‘So Why?’. The song features Jabu Khanyile, Lagbaja and Lourdes Van-Dunem. What grabbed my attention to this song was their live performance on SABC2 at Sun City, South Africa.

Produced by Wally Badarou, the song begins as beautifully as the African sun rising across Serengeti in Tanzania. The sound of the calm saddening chords with babies crying and gunshots in the background set the tone for the song. Lagbaja and his saxophone adds a different chilling element to the song with a groovy side. The opening vocals from Jabu, in isiZulu from South Africa, introduces the concept of the song. When translated it highlights the conflicts of Africa, stating “I’ve asked for peace but all I got was war.” He continues the point of looking for love and finding no together throughout Africa. The saxophone plays a beautiful interlude between Jabu and Papa Wemba’s opening lyrics. Wemba, singing in Lingala from the DRC, focuses his lyrics towards Africa comparing it to being a mother. Looking at Africa as a neglecting mother not feeding its children. The chorus comes in angelically as he sings “I see angels dressed in white playing flute.” Sung by a choir as one, sounding like African singing as one, one cannot help but be moved in their heart.

The message coming from the lovely Lourdes Van-Dunem is the best part of the whole song. Singing in Guimbundo from Angola, she has the most unifying lyrics from the artists. She states that no matter where in Africa you are from whether black or white all that is important is that we respect each other. The legendary ‘7 Seconds’ hitmaker, Youssou N’Dour from Senegal follows, singing in English and French, asking the hard questions of why there is so much hate in Africa. Saxophone player, Lagbaja from Nigeria, singing in English and French from Senegal asking the hard questions of why there is so much hate in Africa. Saxophone player, Lagbaja singing in English from Nigeria, ends the verses telling Africans to calm down and tolerate each other.

The song consists of a South African, Congolese, Angolan, Senegalese and Nigerian with a choir containing people from different countries of Africa. The song is like a ‘We Are the World’ however this time by Africans for Africans. This song has a deep and sad tone to it but ones a place for moving to it. African have been portrayed as being able to be happy in the worst conditions and this song fits that viewpoint with sadness, joy and provides hope for the new generations of Africans to do better. The song is still relevant today, as the main message of the song is to stop ethnic cleansing and tribalism mentality in Africa but instead to come together as one. Reconciliation is the keyword. The sad thing about this song is that Lucky Dube, who was on this album was killed because of xenophobia years later. This shows how important the message of this song is in terms of unifying Africa as seeing everyone in Africa as African regardless of their ethnicity, nationality or race.