Music legend Salif Keita in town for jazz festival
African music legend Salif Keita arrived in Nairobi Tuesday where he is to play a concert to raise money for a music foundation for a Nairobi slum, as part of Kenya’s Safaricom Jazz Festival.
His Afro-pop music, nominated for several world music awards, fuses both African and Western styles.
The Malian singer called for people with albinism to be protected.
“It is completely unacceptable for humans to sacrifice other human beings, it comes from ignorance,” the Malian musician, himself an albino, told AFP in an interview
Some Tanzanian politicians have been accused of buying albino body parts for witchcraft and lucky charms.
At least 76 albinos in Tanzania have been murdered since 2000, with their dismembered body parts selling for around $600 (528 euros) and entire bodies fetching $75,000, according to United Nations experts.
Keita said he hoped that by speaking out, and by playing his world-acclaimed music, he could send a message to stop the attacks, which often target children.
“When people hear me on the microphone and see me on the camera, that has an impact, because I show that I am a complete human being, just like everyone else,” Keita said.
“Just like every human, albinos need to be loved, and seen as normal people.”