She made a name for herself as the choreographer behind one of the most controversial yet critically acclaimed music videos of last year.
Now Sherrie Silver, the creative force behind the dance moves in Childish Gambino’s This Is America, is using her success to drive a social media campaign promoting investment in young people in rural Africa.
The 24-year-old, who tells the Guardian she is on a mission to “make farming cool”, recently visited Cameroon where she carried out dance workshops with farmers and entrepreneurs, before creating the music video Freedom.
“A lot of young people see farming as unglamorous but we wanted to promote the positive aspects,” she explained. “It’s not just about working in the field, it’s about being an entrepreneur. You can see the exchange of money. It’s about running your own business and how empowering that is.”
In Africa, where more than 60% of the population is under 25, an estimated 10 to 12 million young people will enter the job market every year for the next decade – the majority of them in rural areas where agriculture is still the biggest source of livelihoods.
Silver travelled to the village of Ndjore in the district of Mbandjock, an area with high levels of poverty and youth unemployment.
The choreographer, born in Rwanda but raised in London, shot the video as part of a campaign for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad).
It features some of the 2,000 young people in Cameroon who have benefited from start-up grants from Ifad to launch their own businesses.
They include maize, chicken and pork farmers and a woman who runs her own business selling pineapple juice.
The young people were taught the steps by Silver alongside dancers from Cameroon’s National Ballet.
Silver has been bringing Afro-dance to the forefront of the music scene since picking up several awards for This Is America, voted best music video by the Guardian in 2018.
Produced by comedian and writer Donald Glover, the commentary on gun culture in the US went viral last year and has had more than 540 million views on YouTube. It features Glover’s stage persona, Childish Gambino, who performs steps inspired by traditional African dance and curated by Silver.
Now she hopes music fans will take part in a social media campaign by uploading their own 15-second version of her moves in Freedom on the short-form mobile video platform TikTok, using the hashtag #danceforchange.
The results will form a virtual petition, pushing for increased investment in agriculture, and will be delivered to government representatives at an Ifad summit in early 2020.
“We want world leaders to know young people in rural areas are a tremendous resource with the power to feed the world and transform food systems if given the opportunity,” said Silver, who in February was appointed as an Ifad advocate for rural young people.
She teamed up with the Nigerian musician Oluwatosin Ajibade – better known as Mr Eazi – to make the video. He wrote the lyrics for Freedom in partnership with dancehall artist J Derobie and producer Guilty Beatz.
Mr Eazi, who recently performed at Coachella Festival, said: “There is a misconception that farming is not cool, that it is something done by old people and that it’s what you do when everything else fails and you just need to eat.”
He said he hoped the track, which launched this week on Spotify, would inspire young people in rural areas to explore the opportunities around them before moving to big cities.
“People grow up and leave what is right in front of them, the fertile land all across Africa,” he said.
“There is nothing wrong with going to the city but young people leave an opportunity behind that is not only commercially viable but can have a positive impact to wider society and the world.”
