“MC Talka Toure is a rap-artist from Gao. His first album “North Mali Cry” was an immediate success. The album was selling good and the songs were often played on the radio - when suddenly everything stopped. The album was confiscated from the stores and you could no longer hear MC on the radio. President Alpha Oumar Konare had decided that they had to protect people from this man’s music. Well, instead pirate copies were made in the thousands.

This tells us something about MC’s lyrics. He raps in Songhoy and French and his songs often reflect the fact that northern Mali is so much poorer than the rest of the country. He always gives the politicians and people in power a hard time.

In 2009, MC organized the Sweden-Mali voices festival in Sweden, together with Swedish Reidun Runsten. The next Sweden-Mali voices festival was staged in Koïma in January 2010, and then again in Sweden in July 2010. This festival is a cultural exchange between musicians and handycraft artists from the two countries, and it also inspired MC to make an album called Democrazy with Swedish musicians.

Today, MC is well respected among Mali leaders and is involved in different cultural projects for young people in northern Mali. He is also my inspiration and a close friend.”