Negative images from Band Aid did 'more bad than good' for Africa, rapper Fuse ODG tells LBC

22 November 2024, 11:23 | Updated: 22 November 2024, 13:59

Watch Again: Nick Ferrari is joined by Fuse ODG | 22/11/24

Negative images from Band Aid did "more bad than good" for Africa, rapper Fuse ODG has said.

Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Fuse said that Band Aid had cost Africa trillions over the years, with the continent being seen as "high risk" as a result of the negative imagery.

It comes after Ed Sheeran said he would have "respectfully declined" the use of his vocals on the upcoming 40th anniversary version of Do They Know It's Christmas? after speaking to the rapper about the narrative attached to it.

"Giving is good and I love that the British public love to give when there’s a crisis but what I pointed out to [Bob Geldof] was that it’s the model," Fuse told Nick.

"There’s a way that we can raise money for the people in crisis without taking away their dignity, their pride, their identity. We can raise it in a dignified way in the same way we’ve done for Ukraine."

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Explaining how Band Aid had caused a negative impact on Africa, Fuse said: "It’s cost us in trillions. I’ll give one example – because of the negative images that have been portrayed of the continent, Africa is seen is a high-risk profile.

"As a result of that, we get high interest rate on our sovereign debts. It’s costing us £3.2 billion every year."

Fuse ODG on the problem with 'Do They Know It's Christmas'

He went on to say: "I partnered with the Ghana government for this initiative called The Year of Return that enables people to come to Ghana just to enjoy Africa first-hand. We managed to raise in that year £1.9billion for the economy.

"Before that, we were giving out 45,000 visas, during that we gave out 750,000 visas. Imagine this scaled across the continent and all the countries in Africa positioning themselves like that.

"That’s potential revenue that we've lost over the years – when you work that out that’s about £100billion per year."

Fuse said that he grew up not being proud of who he was due to how Africa was portrayed.

"In the long-run – and I'm speaking as a child who grew up in an era where these images of Band Aid and initiatives like it had been on our screens for years – it really affected me as an African living in the UK.

"I was not proud of who I was, who I am, I wanted to disconnect with being African because whenever anything that was related to Africa would come up all my friends from school would be laughing.

"Imagine your child going to school and being embarrassed of who they are because of how the media has portrayed them.

"The way it’s affected me and everybody from my generation…I just want to create a better world for my child growing up in the UK or outside of Africa.

"I just want my child to grow up in a world where they can feel proud of who they are and just be themselves."

He said Africa is "a place of opportunities and investment, a place where you can have a great time, a place where you can generally have a holiday and take your family".

"It’s now time to really tell the truth of what’s in Africa which is a place where you don't have to just give £2 and get on with your life you can go and spend £2,000 in a week," he said.

The rapper said Africa was suffering from a lack of representation in the West.

"Band Aid raised money for the Ebola crisis, but what Band Aid forgot to mention was that the Ebola crisis was solved by an African from Congo called Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe," he said.

"There's an imbalance of how Africa is portrayed and it’s now time to counterbalance that."

It comes after Bob Geldof, who founded Band Aid, responded to an article published in The Conversation on the subject last week, saying Do They Know It's Christmas? had "kept hundreds of thousands if not millions of people alive".

"In fact, just today Band Aid has given hundreds of thousands of pounds to help those running from the mass slaughter in Sudan and enough cash to feed a further 8,000 children in the same affected areas of Ethiopia as 1984," he said.

"Those exhausted women who weren’t raped and killed and their panicked children and any male over 10 who survived the massacres and those 8,000 Tigrayan children will sleep safer, warmer and cared for tonight because of that miraculous little record."

Fuse said he understood the initiative began with good intentions but it was frustrating that there was no dialogue in how to resolve the crisis.

"If anybody’s going through a crisis, just listen to them and ask them 'how?' don’t just say 'this is what you need'," he said.

"We speak, we have a conversation, a dialogue, there shouldn’t just be a monologue… it needs to be solidarity over charity."

He continued: "Forty years later, we are the children of the people you were helping and we are telling you it did not help us in the way you thought it was going to help us.

"We lost in the end. So let's find a way to move forward."