The global Live8 concerts and the Make Poverty History campaign have helped push Africa to the top of the agenda at this week’s G8 summit in Scotland. All great. But do we need famous rock stars and prominent politicians to remind people in the north of Africa’s existence, when Africans are already part of their everyday lives? And must these celebrities speak for Africans, when Africans are more than capable of speaking for themselves?

Two questions from one life-affirming event held on either side of the Live8 extravaganza on 2 July: the three-day multicultural Couleur Café festival in Brussels, now in its sixteenth consecutive year.

Michel Durieux, the chief organiser, told me that the festival’s initial intention was to highlight the Belgian capital’s rich cultural diversity. “We want to open boundaries between different cultures and encourage the north-south encounter”, he says. “I understand that Couleur Café coincides with the current (political) debate on Africa, but this is an artistic festival, nourished by the cultural diversity of the performers. We don’t take ourselves too seriously”.

Anyone who in the course of an hour sampled a delicious “Himalayan” vegetarian dish, played a gigantic African xylophone, drank pure sugar-plant juice and danced with Brazilian street artists will testify to that. All great. But sixteen is also a coming-of-age for Couleur Café; this year, for the first time, there is a space dedicated to NGOs. The “ONGO Village” contains thirteen stands where a variety of human rights and environmental campaign groups make presentations, offer information, and seek support and signatories for their cause.

Arlette Scohier is a volunteer for an organisation against female sexual mutilation, Groupement pour l’Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles Féminines (Gams):

“I think this is a great opportunity for us to get some attention. But I wish that more people would access the village. They should advertise it better within the festival and have artists act as ambassadors on stage as well”.

Indeed, the magnetic attraction drawing most visitors to Brussels’ Tour & Taxis event site is not politics but music: a pulsating line-up of more than 650 musicians, among the most popular this year being Rokia Traoré, Orishas, Youssou N’Dour, Alpha Blondy, Oscar D’Leon and Le Peuple de l’Herbe. For many musicians, Couleur Café is a special opportunity to give their culture a voice. Nando from the Belgian rap band L’Agency of Angolan-Congolese origin is one. His band was especially proud of their performance with French rap icon Kool Shen. “It was an amazing moment for us to be able to cooperate with such a big star”, band manager Patrick Mugunga told me. “Music brings people together, no matter what ethnicity. It’s a cultural exchange and that’s what makes this festival so special”.

Michael Durieux makes the point that the festival renews itself by attracting young artists like L’Agency, whose members are in their early 20s:

“I want the young people to have a voice in the world and express their feelings. This is why during the past years we have started featuring a lot of urban music styles with DJs”.

The Africa on display at Couleur Café is more than music: all around the festival tents dozens of craftspeople offer their goods, other stalls provide culinary delights from all over the world, and artists are exhibiting their work. Amraoui Mustafa, an Algerian, sells original Berber goods ranging from hand-made sandals to beautiful bracelets. “I sell at many different festivals together with my Senegalese and Moroccan colleagues. We all work for our culture, it’s not about the money”.

The Couleur Café and similar events across Europe don’t have or need a big media, commercial or political profile to pull in the crowds (around 68,000 people attended the festival). The Brussels festival is probably closer in spirit to the concert at Cornwall’s Eden Project, hastily added to the Live8 schedule after complaints about the Hyde Park show’s neglect and disrespect of African musicians at a concert arranged supposedly to highlight the problems of their continent.

One weekend a year, Brussels – centre of a divided nation, capital of a schismatic Europe, past incubus of an infamous empire – is also host to a gathering where an African community assembles to affirm that it is “here” not “there”, agent not victim, creative not dependent, generous not needy. All great, and not just a “cultural” message.