Garry Yankson is a special being, passionate about hip-hop culture, which he discovered at a very young age, in particular thanks to his mother, an association leader, who took him to dance shows that she organized. He made a career out of it by creating an agency dedicated to hip-hop projects and shows in France, but also around the world with a very special focus on the United States, which has always influenced him.
This adventure, he put it down in a book which also wants to be a great message: everyone can change their life and the world. Meeting with a passionate artist.
A quest for identity in adolescence that will define today’s adult
Garry Yankson defines himself as an Afro-descendant or Afropean. Very comfortable in this double culture which he has made a strength. The entrepreneur is a true activist of living together and the mixing of cultures. Like the city of New York, which he knows so well and in which he has produced several major meetings.
The teenager from the southern suburbs of Paris discovers hip-hop, then in search of his identity, that of this absent father. Then begins this passion for this Afro-American culture and its various ramifications. He has been dancing for years and appreciates the cultural pride of those with whom he evolves in this new environment of hip-hop. These young people look like him and fully live their African cultural origins and he likes that. His first dance teacher then spoke to him about the values, codes, lexicon and culture behind the hip-hop movement and he became passionate about this universal art. For the young adult in the making, all this is so much more exciting than what he learns on the benches of school. He then danced fifteen hours a week until the year of the baccalaureate, then did the studies necessary to create his first entrepreneurial project around the world of hip-hop. He set up a first event in 2013 around dance, before extending his operations to the entire hip-hop ecosystem, in France but also internationally, by creating several festivals. The opportunities for multidisciplinary festivals followed with concerts, workshops, battles, initiations, both in France and beyond the French borders.
As nothing seems to stop him, Garry then set up his own label by producing a first album with French, North African and American artists. He now advises on hip-hop projects around the world.
America, the influence from his early years
Garry grew up with the boomers of the hip-hop movement in the 90s. He is a child of this golden decade of hip-hop, that of Spike Lee, the Prince of Bel Air but also Jay-Z, Moby Dick…, then rappers like Eminen or 50 Cent. For him, this American movement brought together essential values and notions: the power and intelligence of its representatives, but also the values of rebellion, protest, marginalization and a unique movement that extended across the world. Later, he will applaud IAM or NTM and the French rap that built it.
USA, here I am!
His first trip to the United States, he will do at the age of sixteen, in partnership with the French Embassy in Washington DC, during a school exchange program. From this trip, he returned inflated with the Franco-American culture of which he breathed every scent. Enthusiastic, he then decides to study in the United States, but this project will not see the light of day because of the enormous tuition fees. No matter, he will return there otherwise.
In 2008, he decided to experience the presidential election on the spot, hoping that Barack Obama would be the first elected black president. He recounts with emotion these privileged moments in the midst of Americans proud of their vote. He then returned to the United States every two years before doing a long internship there. From this country that inspires him, he brings back his first American artist whom he produces on stage and to whom he dedicates an album. Then follow the events in New York, and Brooklyn from 2018 to 2020. Held back by the Covid, he is in a hurry: to resume the projects left fallow. From a Ghanaian father, he speaks fluent English. Not because this father taught him but because in his quest for his origins he wanted to learn it young and intensely.
Black Lives Matter, a fight with the wrong message
Lover of Afro-American culture, accustomed to traveling to the United States, a double culture… It was interesting to ask Garry about the movement that shook America and spread to the West.
He greeted this revolt with emotion, sad and angry from what he saw as millions of people around the world. This injustice, he wanted to express it when taking positions. And then he immersed himself in a reflection that led him to analyze this movement in the history of American protests. For him the movement was not created with the values he defends but to exploit the most vulnerable populations. Stirring up hatred and recovering the movement on social networks in particular, is for him more manipulation than healthy combat. He doubts the genesis and the values of the movement and refuses mass manipulation. Racism is fought together for Gary and not against each other.
The genesis of the book
If he had in mind for a long time to write a book on his career and his passion for hip-hop, the reflections from the BLM movement and the confinement in France pushed him to take up the pen. The planned events had all been cancelled, the time was up for writing.
He expresses his revolt, his introspection on his journey…. He has so much to say. And then this book is also part of a new life cycle.
Beyond this work on its existence, this book is also a message, a desire to inspire the youngest by showing them the example, but also by challenging everyone on their ability to change things, starting with changing themselves. -same.
Garry has changed. He lives with passion through this hip-hop culture that built him. A culture that has greatly influenced the whole world. And for decades.
Garry insists on the importance of the values carried by the hip-hop culture. No, this music is not that of the suburbs and its excesses as some people think. It is that of love, mutual aid, solidarity and entertainment. And that’s what readers will also discover in the book.
Projects in the United States?
Apart from the resumption of events, Garry has long-term projects including that of setting up in the United States and therefore expanding his activities on the other side of the Atlantic. The United States remains the biggest market for hip-hop culture. A new challenge that does not scare those who have made their professional life a passion.
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