“Art remains our oxygen”: DR Congo’s slam poets refuse to be silenced
ON the last Friday of every month, they would gather in public spaces to share their latest verses. At festivals and in stadiums, they would perform to packed audiences who would listen to every line. In classrooms, they stood before rows of students, guiding them through their craft. For the past decade, slam poetry – a form of performance poetry with bite – has thrived in the main cities of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, becoming one of the war-torn region’s most vital forms of cultural expression and political dissent. But the scene is now confronting unprecedented challenges. Since…
