Bafing Kul is a singer from Bamako, Mali who has become an activist for the inequalities that he has witnessed within the communities of his homeland. One of the many issues that he has sung about is FGM, a very politicized and prevalent practice within Mali. In the most recent survey done in Mali in 2001, the prevalence rate of FGM was 91.6% of the females between the ages of 15-49. This includes all forms of the practice, which vary in severity from type to type.
His music is a myriad of traditional rhythms from the landscape of Mali married to reggae music and called “APOLLO REGGAE”. He has chosen reggae as his genre of music, a genre of music that has a strong history of promoting human rights. Reggae has a strong relationship to the themes of liberty and human rights promoted most famously with Bob Marley and the Wailers of the 1970’s.
He is a self-proclaimed activist for justice, human rights, equality, and health and education in his country creating militant music that breaks away from established traditions. With his music, Kul has tackled subjects including child trafficking, women’s rights, corruption and FGM. Bafing Kul has been singing against excision since 1997. Kul released his first song against excision in 1998, a single in French titled Démystification. Since since 2002 he has not felt safe in Mali because the public has not received his singing.
Bafing Kul now lives in France and is supported by CAMS, an NGO fighting for the abolition of sexual mutilation. CAMS sponsored the recording of his first and second albums. Declaring him an official partner in their In 2006 he went back to Mali in order to record a new album and while there he made a short film looking at the tradition of excision. A clip of this documentary is below, with the background of his song against female circumcision.
It wont be for today_Bafing Kul
However, how he is known is for his song against female circumcision and the work he has done for that cause. His song Eh!Eh!Eh!Eh! is not veiled in its message about female excision, starting with the phrase “Female sexual mutilation is not good!” and repeating variations of that phrase four times before describing in more detail why it is harmful. The video below is a live performance of this song. The lyrics to this song can be found here.
Bafing Kul works towards the eradication of this practice directly through his lyrics. While he is sponsored by an NGO for the eradication of sexual mutilation his approach is quite different than Sister Fa who uses her influence to educate. Bafing Kul has shown through his interested in making a documentary, that he wants to educate as well. However, the audience of that documentary will inevitably be Western rather than Mali. Sister Fa directs her energy back into Senegal, using her influence as a rapper to educate the native communities about the dangers of FGM.
To learn more about Sister Fa click here