Abstract
SENEGALESE AMERICAN HIP-HOP RHYTHM AND BLUES SINGER AKON SOARED TO the top of U.S. music charts in 2004 with his autobiographical gangsta ballad, “Locked Up.” The track chronicles Akon’s frustration with being profiled, harassed, and ultimately imprisoned by law enforcement officials. Though Akon’s narrative centers on his experience in the United States, the sense of captivity outlined in his hit song—with its chorus, “I’m locked up, they won’t let me out”— parallels events that took place in his native Senegal the previous year.
One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history.
—George W. Bush
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
NOTES
“The reenactment of the event of captivity,” as Saidiya Hartman (2002, 760) insists, “contrives an enduring, visceral, and personal memory of the unimaginable” and not simply for people from the African Diaspora returning to Senegal as part of a heritage crusade but also for this Senegalese population, many of whom acknowledged no previous link to the history of the transatlantic slave trade, despite inhabiting a region steeped in the history of its commercial transactions. Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).
BBC News, “Country profile: Senegal,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1064496.stm (accessed May 15, 2005).
Tidiane Sy, “Senegal opposition to amnesty law,” BBC News, January 11, 2005.
See “Pour la création d’un Pacte africaine contre le terrorisme,” L’info 7, Jeudi September 20, 2001; and “Le président Wade propose un ‘Pacte africaine contre le terrorisme,’” Soleil, Vendredi September 21, 2001.
See “Senegal celebrates Cup heroics,” British Broadcast Corporation Sport, July 21, 2001, emphasis added.
See “Pèlerinage à la Maison des Esclaves,” Le Soleil Samedi le 3 Vendredi 1998.
Djibril Samb, ed. 1997. Gorée et l’esclavage: Actes du Séminaire sur “Gorée dans la Traite atlantique: mythes et réalités.” Dakar: IFAN.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2008 Manning Marable and Vanessa Agard-Jones
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ralph, M. (2008). “Crimes of History”. In: Marable, M., Agard-Jones, V. (eds) Transnational Blackness. The Critical Black Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615397_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615397_22
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-60268-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61539-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)