More than 20 reggae musicians, top DJs plus other 15 selected Gambian artistes are participating in the ongoing Back to Africa Festival in Batokunku, West Coast Region. The musicians were among the over 400 tourists who jetted into The Gambia via Thomas Cook airlines last Thursday to witness and celebrate the historic festival.

The ongoing Back to Africa Festival currently underway at Batokunku village also marks the celebration of the 10th anniversary of ARIWA Records Company, owned and managed by Neil Fraser aka ‘Mad Professor’ who is the organiser of the historic event. Fraser was born over 50 years ago in South America but lives in London where he produces and promotes musicians and runs a programme called “Mad Professor” talk show where he mixes and re-mixes things live in front of the audience.

According to him, 300 tourists from UK and over 100 from other parts of the world are attending the festival. “They are lovers of music and they came to party and enjoy themselves,” he remarked. He revealed that all the artistes are international reggae stars and none of them was born in UK and Jamaica. “They are people like Macka B, Greg George, Mafia, Fluxy, Tony Williams, McPullish, Frankie Paul Kim Pin and Gambian artistes like Sambou Susso, Bala Ranks, Exodus, Heartbreaker and others,” he added.

Fraser explained that event was named ‘Back to Africa’ due to the fact that in the 70s ‘Back to Africa’ was a common slogan. He said: “As teenagers of the 70s, we rebel against parents and western views about Africa which was very bad. They thought Africans are without cloth, that Africans eat people; politically they thought whites are beautiful and blacks are ugly. So we kids of the 70s kicked against this and said ‘black is beautiful’. From there they started to love our culture and heritage, our structure, dark skin, hair and lifestyles among others.  “We have the best of everything like the best boxer in the world, Mohammed Ali, cricketer, tennis player and some beautiful women. Therefore Back to Africa means we are going back home totally to ourselves ‘back to ourselves’ because ‘black is beautiful.”

Neil Fraser who acquired his sobriquet ‘Mad Professor,’ when he was less than 10 years old said as a young child he was so curious and particular in finding answer to any unclear things. He said one day he asked his mother about the man inside a radio but his mother replied ‘no man is in there.’ Because of his curiosity he opened the radio in the absence of his mother but found no man inside and his angry mum upon her return, told him to go to the library and find something to read. “I did go to the library and I read a book about electronics, so I built my first radio from there at the age of nine,” Fraser revealed. He opined that The Gambia needs more good and meaningful international festivals such as this one in order to help bring in more visitors to the country annually.