FREE AZAGAIA

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FREE AZAGAIA

Azagaia was born in the Namaacha district of the Maputo province on the 6^th of May 1984, fathered by a Cape-Verdean man to a Mozambican mother. Azagaia started his musical career in a hip-hop group name “Dinastia Bantu” (Bantu Dynasty) alongside “Escudo” (Shield), with whom he recorded an album entitled “Sia-Vuma”. He went on to join Cotonete Records and released his first solo album named Babalaze.

There was a lot of controversy around this album especially after the pre-release of the song “As mentiras da Verdade” which means “The lies of the Truth”, which was released to promote the album. The song was based on social criticism that had not been seen for a long time in the hip-hop scene. People in all walks of life, with different social and economic backgrounds and of different ages were discussing Azagaia and his social intervention on television debates, blogs and many other media. The song was censored by some local media and was banned from some radio and TV stations.

A short while after, Azagaia hit back at all those who were criticising his music by releasing another extremely socially critical song named “A Marcha”. After this came the long awaited release of the album itself, on the 10^th of November 2007, this album broke records in Mozambique for number of copies sold on the date of release. The album had a guest appearance of a well known Portuguese rapper named Valete.

After the strikes on the 5^th of February 2008, Azagaia was called to the General Attorney’s Office because of “Povo no Poder” (Power to the People) a song that was addressing issues around this strike. He was never officially accused of anything after this hearing. In the same year of 2008 the rapper participated in an international music festival in Portugal, city of Porto. The “Mestico” festival apart from having received Azagaia also had the participation of Marcelo D2 who is a Brazilian rapper and Sam the Kid a Portuguese rapper.

On December 25^th of 2007 and 2008 Azagaia released “Obrigado Pai Natal” (Thank You Father Christmas) and “Obrigado de Novo Pai Natal” (Thank You Again Father Christmas), where he summarised his opinions on the happenings of each of the years according to how he saw things.

In 2009 Azagaia released the video to a song said to be inspired by the crisis lived in Zimbabwe at that time, the title was “Combatentes da Fortuna” (Warriors of the Fortune). At the end of this year, the rapper travelled to Angola to participate in a concert organised by the Angolan rapper Kid MC, here he also performed alongside Sam the Kid. He then released the video for the track “Labirintos” which focused around the issue of sexual networks. The video was sponsored by PEPFAR/USAID and JOHN HOPKINS.

In 2010 the song “Arri” was released which spoke about a drug scandal which took place in Mozambique, and other cases of prison escapes, fiascos and assassinations. This drug scandal was referring to the Mozambican businessman Mohamed Bashir Sulemane who was placed on a list of drug barons around the world by the United States’ government.

Still in 2010, the rapper participated in two music festivals in Denmark, the Fair Trade Festival and the RAW Festival of which the first was to promote fair trade using international musicians of many different styles and the second was more focused on electronic and urban music.

Azagaia also revealed himself as an actor when he co-appeared alongside the Mozambican actor Mario Mbjaia is a short film entitled “Malha” which was shortlisted at the African Film Festival in Nigeria in 2009. He also went on to appear in other short films like “Traidos pela traicao” (Betrayed by betrayal) and “Venenos do amor” (Poisons of love), all for the Nweti-Communication for Education project.

Recently, Azagaia initialized a civil non- violent protest entitled 6 of May. The "6 of May Protest (movement)" argues that reforms are in need to be carried out on the Mozambican Public Policies,Orientating them to the production of food and basic consumer goods,to finally take advantage of the vast and fertile territory that Mozambique has,which will reduce the excessive and almost total dependency of the country on the international market,thus balancing the current scale of import/export.The 6 of May essentially argues that civil society must begin to strictly monitor Government Actions,since the opposition Political parties still show lack of organization and seriousness.The protest (sign) is not to cut your hair or to wear a button on the left wrist until the Government carries out the required reforms.

His second album is forecast to be released in 2011 and is going to be entitled “Cubaliwa” which means birth in the Sena language from the central and northern regions of Mozambique.