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"Tribalism is destroying the future of Ghanaian youth" - XO Senavoe

XO Senavoe says the extent to which tribalism has eaten into our Ghanaian social fabric is worrying especially for the growing youth.

XO Senavoe

Ghanaian Hip-hop artiste, ranked amongst top 10 rappers in Africa by Lobatan Africa in 2014; has spoken about the need to eschew tribalism in our society.

XO Senavoe says the extent to which tribalism has eaten into our Ghanaian social fabric is worrying especially for the growing youth.

He was speaking in an interview with HashTagGhana.com, following recent views he shared on Twitter on the need to eschew tribalism within our society.

Talking about what motivated him to talk about tribalism, the "Gost" crooner said "As an artist your arts has to reflect the times and what is happening around you. There are some topics that we shy away from because it’s difficult to talk about. But sometimes you have to discuss it. It is something that I thought about for a while and I just decided tweet about it."

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"Personally, I think I speak more for people than I speak for myself. Obviously, everybody else has gone through some sort of discrimination. If you are a black person, you probably went through some racism. If you hear somebody probably said something about your tribe or treated you differently because of the tribe you belong to or they belong to. I haven’t necessarily being feeling ‘suffering from tribalism’ it is not from a continues personal experience but it is something that I believe exists, and we are becoming as young people," XO said about his personal experience.

Senavoe continued "I grew up in Ghana, lived in Kumasi before. We are exposed to it all the time. Every tribe has some stereotypes that people play about with each other, the joke; and there is nothing wrong with the jokes, but when it becomes something that people literally treat you better for; or worse for because of their tribe or your tribe, then I think that is a problem."

Drawing the line between identity and tribalism, the rapper said "Tribalism is where whatever you are translates into how you treat people differently. Or however you are, or however they are translate into you treating them differently. For example, if I am proud of being a black person, or I am proud of being an Ashanti person, or I am proud of being an Ewe person, there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with the pride that comes with the identity. But if I treat someone worse because I am from this tribe and you are from the other tribe, and then there is a problem. And if I treat someone better because they are from a particular tribe, and I am from another or the same tribe, then that becomes a problem as well. I think that we shouldn’t treat people better or worse because of where they are from."

Finally, he touched on the worst case scenario for Ghanaian societies, saying "I think it is very clear that tribalism is a huge thing in our country. We treat people differently based on where they are from. When I was growing up, I know that older people will always their child, where your girlfriend is from or your boyfriend is from, and they will even tell you not to marry from a particular tribe. My parents were not like though, but my I always had some of my friends talk about how their parents will not allow them to date somebody from this tribe or that tribe. And we hated it, but we all laugh around it but slowly we are becoming that. You can see it on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. We are becoming the same thing that we didn’t like."

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