Prophets are never honoured in the land of their birth, but in foreign they are worship and honoured, this could be said of the Legendary Icon of Senegambian Music and Culture Musa Afia Ngum. For I had asked myself why?

In The Gambia we don’t cherish our very own but would give our lives and everything to celebrate and honour others. What happened to the Maestro Musa Afia Ngum had happen to the Legendary Paps Touray, Labba Sosseh, Mawdo Sey, Oussou Lion Njie just to name a few.

For Musa Ngum was one person who had dedicated his entire life, fame and fortune to call for African unity but to his philosophy Gambia and Senegal could be the catalyst for that by coming together to form a federation which would be beneficial to both countries but more importantly its citizens. Today we will morn his demise but the most important thing is to have a sober reflection on his ideals for the common good of Senegambia as a nation and its people, we can cry and cry but we shall never do justice to his legacy until and unless we ensure that his wishes are accomplish.

We know collectively we have failed to honour him while he was alive even though he gave his entire life and fortune in bringing joy and smile to the faces of many over the years, the golden voice of Musa had left us with great songs that has played a greater part in edutaining (educating and entertaining), he release so many cassettes that will go down to be remembered as some of the classic songs from the Senegambia region but yet we refused to buy them, the most hurtful case was not long ago when Musa did the celebration of his 4 decades career in music and yet we refused to attend.

You see God will always continue to teach us lessons unless we as Gambians come to realized that when He blessed us with something honourable like Musa Ngum that every country would love to call their own, we should honour and celebrate His Prophet to us. It would have been so great if that last show of his at Just 4 You as the climax of his long colorful career was done in the Gambia and we all came out in mass to honour and celebrate the life of one person who has given his all to the people of The Gambia but yet it was our cousin brothers/sisters who took him as their own and gave him what his country of birth couldn’t do for him, so it was only fair that for his last show on earth was predestined to be in Senegal and with friends and fans he made over the years. I was amazed seeing Sulayman Ndene Ndiaye ( former Prime Minister) came out to attend his show because to him Musa inspired them during their days at UCAD while he was with the Super Diamono and had played shows there for the students.Collectively we had failed many of our heroes and the question is “are we going to continue failing them”? The answer should be a big NO! Then it’s time that we come together and start celebrating our very own, Musa deserved much more than how we treated him during his life on earth but he left behind a family and especially Yusupha Ngum whom we should all rally behind and give him what we couldn’t gave to his father.

 

Time for sober reflection is now!

1. Government by enacting laws that will for the least guarantee those into the field of arts reap the benefits of their labor by kick starting the royalty collection, government also needs to build an Arts Academy for Excellence and name it (Musa Afia Ngum Arts Academy For Excellence), they also need to device a trust fund, health insurance scheme or a housing scheme to enable them have homes or get proper medical care when they are sick.
2. The music promoters home and abroad we know you guys are into business ventures and your Soul aim in what you do is to maximize profit but is high time the millions you continue to spend on foreign artist at least if 25% of that is spend on our very own artist very soon the industry will grow and at the end when the history revolutionizing of the industry is talk of anywhere you shall always be mention. It’s good to make money but let’s remember there is nothing worth celebrating than leaving a positive legacy behind long you are gone people will always talk about it.
3. Finally the people who matters most in all this is us the spectators because we pay our monies to watch all the foreign artist brought by our promoters, shame on us for willing to pay D600.00 to watch Wizkid but when Gee ask for D150.00 we still complain and wants our artist to step up their game. We are always good in helping others make their heroes while we shameless watch our die in pain and anger and yet we call ourselves Patriot, you see yesterday and today many had said so much about him, few have shed crocodile tears like the Wollof proverb “Doma reila ba pareh jalehla” could be said of the same between us and most of our artists. We refused to support or celebrate, we watch them die in pain and anger and after all that we are the first to be at their funerals holding the casket or competing for who shed more tears, let’s stop the hypocrisy and either support them or when they pass on let’s have the manners to remain silent as we did while they were at the peak of their careers and we refused to support.

“How long shall we continue to watch our Prophets die like this”? Let’s reflect on this and be honest to our self.