African musicians face travel anxiety post-Brexit

It is a problem that artists from the Gambia are especially attuned to. Before the referendum that precipitated the departure of UK from the European Union, Gambian acts had suffered humiliations in the travel process. Last year, there was an outcry from the artist ENC on social media.

“The government needs to do something about this,” he said. “…”

Recently another Gambian act declined an invitation because members of his band were refused visas. “I did not want to do playback,” he said.

It isn’t just lesser-known acts from smaller countries with these problems. Yemi Alade has complained about being mistreated by an airline staff. And last year, Wizkid, possibly the most famous African pop star said the reason he failed to attend the American festival Coachella was connected to unspecified visa issues.

The organisers of these festivals are also affected, as evident from a letter penned by WOMAD founder Peter Gabriel. "It has been an unexpected development since the introduction of the new visa system and the public exclamation of the prime minister to create a “Hostile Environment” on immigration, that for the first time in our 35+ years of bringing artists into the UK they are choosing to decline the invitations," he wrote.

Yet the situation is perhaps more than one-sided, as indeed as surely as the west has become more isolated since the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency in the US and the Brexit vote, incidents of African artists absconding have not helped the situation. Shortly after playing a set at the summer festival in the US, Afrobeat act Femi Kuti took to Twitter to express exasperation with one of his instrumentalists.

“Our set was almost spoiled yesterday when our guitarist took off…”

Posted alongside a photo of the culprit, the message, given Kuti’s global fame, would do little to discourage immigration authorities from barring acts who appear to have inadequate motivation for returning to their home countries.

Perhaps a solution is already being put in place. As more global music companies come to set up shop on the continent, African acts will stand a better chance at moving across borders easily, given the might of such companies as Sony Music and Universal Music and the ease of access they command across the world and especially in the west.