Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free’s joint creative imprint, pgLang, has partnered with Global Citizen to launch the Move Afrika initiative. Beginning with the inaugural Move Afrika: Rwanda festival on December 6, the initiative aims to lay the groundwork for major tours and festivals to move throughout the continent as they do in Europe, Asia, North America and other regions of the world.
“Global Citizen has been operating on the continent since our very inception,” Global Citizen Co-Founder Hugh Evans said.
“We were honored to be there to celebrate Mandela’s 100th anniversary in 2018, alongside Beyonce and Jay Z and so many incredible artists. Then, during the pandemic, we were thrilled to be in Nigeria at the New Afrika Shrine, alongside Femi Kuti and an incredible lineup, and then last year in Accra, Ghana for the Global Citizen Festival alongside Usher, SZA, Tems and Stormzy.”
Kendrick Lamar, Dave Free and Global Citizen have a working relationship that dates back to 2016. Between the release of To Pimp A Butterfly and DAMN, the Compton native performed at the Global Citizen Festival.
“I sat down recently with Kendrick and the pgLang team, and whether it’s Kendrick, Dave Free, Anthony or their entire team, they all share this massive passion to see that touring across the entire continent would become as prolific as it has become across Latin America, across North America, across Europe, across Australia and across so many other continents,” Evans added.
“pgLang are going to be involved in every aspect of this initiative. They’re going to be involved from a musical curation point of view, helping to determine which artists are involved following in Kendrick’s footsteps. But they’re also going to be involved creatively as well, thinking through the creative rollout of the campaigns over the years, the look and feel, and the global broadcast. They really have become partners in this endeavor.”
