The African Students Association will present the third annual African Night showcase Sunday at 6:30 p.m. in the Colvard Student Union Ballroom.
The event subtitled “A Music Safari to Africa,” will feature native African students performing music from their homeland as well as a showcase of their nations dress in a fashion show. More than 30 African students will sing, dance and perform with various African instruments.
Robert Damm, director of music education partnerships, said nine songs from nine different parts of Africa will be performed.
“Nine different students chose the songs that will be performed at the event,” Damm said. “[The students] will be singing in various African dialects and be accompanied by drums.”
Damm said some works performed will be traditional African music with contemporary popular music with full choruses.
Alcorn State University professor Togbui Bakata will also orate at the event. Bakata, chief of a province in Ghana, will speak about the different types of religious worship performed in Africa.
ASA president elect, Ernest Kwaku Kraka, said students will hopefully learn about the different nations within Africa.
“Many people here tend to think that Africa is a country instead of a continent,” Kraka said.
Luwani Ndukum, graduate physics major and ASA treasurer, said the purpose of the event is to show Africa’s rich culture and promote cultural diversity.
“Most of the time what we see on CNN about Africa is war, famine, suffering which is not necessarily the case,” he said. “I do recognize there’s conflict in some areas but the media is overdoing it.”
While the program will start at 6:30 p.m., Damm said the event will run on village time, meaning the showcase will start once everyone arrives at the venue and will proceed at its own pace.
“Don’t be looking at your watch if you plan on attending,” he said. “It’s going to be an organic experience.”
Damm said the event is always held in February in conjunction with Black History Month. He said the ASA takes pride in the program and sees the showcase as a way of sharing African culture with the Starkville community.
“They [ASA members] want to serve as ambassadors and share information with the Starkville and MSU communities,” he said. “Every culture has its own music, and they want to share that with everyone.”
With plenty of music, food and fashion, Kraka said he believes the event will be well attended.
“At the end of the day, music is such an important part of Africa,” he said. “I am really excited about African Nights and [the ASA members] are ready to show a little bit of their culture.”
Damm said everyone in attendance will surely appreciate the cross-continental trip to Africa from the comfortable confines of the Union.
“We may not be able to send everyone to African, but we want to bring a little bit of African to them,” Damm said.
For more information about the showcase, contact Damm at 325-7728.