Apart from reading up about Pan-Africanism and Pan-Africanists like Zik of Africa, Nkrumah and the rest, I learnt a lot about being an African from reggae Musicians who were not mostly from the African continent, but chose to identify themselves as Africans because they are black.
One song titled “African” by Peter Tosh was one of those songs that first opened my mind about Africa and being an African
Tosh said “I don’t care where you come from, as long as you are a black man, you are an African.”
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That song was the one that made me realize that every black man in the world no matter his location has African ancestry.
He went on to tell Africans not to mind their nationalities because we all have the identity of an African.
He admonished Africans not to mind their denominations, as it amounts to mere segregation.
He said “if you go to Catholic, Methodist or the Church of God, you are still an African.
Apart from Peter Tosh’s “African” one other song that preached about the unity of Africa is Bob Marley’s “Africa Unite” which is actually the title of this write up.
Part of the song said:
“How good and how pleasant it will be before God and man, to see the unification of all Africa”
“Africa Unite cos we are moving right out of Babylon, and we are grooving to our father’s land”
The truth is that the black man has assimilated the division the colonialists programmed us to assimilate, instead of maximizing our strength and diversity and use it for the betterment of our people and our continent.