Wake Up Madagascar: Jul 17, 2012

Singer, songwriter and environmental activist Razia Said spent her childhood in the vanilla-growing region of Madagascar’s northeast coast. After years of living abroad, she returned to discover her country’s landscape ravaged by illegal logging, slash-and-burn agriculture and the impact of climate change.

In an effort to raise awareness at the local and international level, Razia organized the Mifohaza Masoala (Wake Up Masoala) music/environmental festival, which took place at the edge of the Masoala Rainforest in October 2011. The concert featured some of Madagascar’s most exciting performers, and the festival was a huge success, with over 10,000 people in attendance. Leading up to the concert, the local communities planted a total of 20,000 trees as a positive step to bring new life to a country that loses 1,000 trees a day to illegal logging. The concert participants agreed that the next step was to take the music and the message to the world since the logging in Madagascar is driven by demand from international buyers, including a giant market in the U.S.

The Wake Up Madagascar tour in North America features Malagasy stars Jaojoby, Razia, Charles Kely and Saramba, supported by an all-star lineup of 9 on-stage performers – bringing together the same outstanding musicians and dancers who created an uplifting celebration of salegy music in the rainforest of Madagascar. With its heart-pounding rhythms, rippling guitars, lush vocal harmonies, bouncy accordion and hip-shaking dance moves, salegy represents the soul and spirit of Madagascar and is the music that makes Madagascar dance.

[ click here for more info on the featured artists ]

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