in the 14th century in 1331 ebon Battuta
the fame moroccan explorer perhaps the
world’s greatest traveler covered more
ground than Marco Polo arrived on the
Bona Dea Coast in the same city we are
seated in today what he came across the
time was the wealthiest most powerful
city not only in East Africa but some
historians say the Indian Ocean trading
system at large which of course at the
time was the centerpiece of the global
economy
so if Rome was the king of the
Mediterranean Mogadishu certainly was
the pearl of the Indian Ocean
when a bomba – – arrived his ship was
anchored off the coast large groups of
young Somali men went out to greet him
they offered his crew food they placed
them under their protection and they
handled their business affairs for the
entirety of their stay in Mogadishu such
renowned hospitality invited traders
seafarers merchants Admirals and even
royalty to these shores and I think
anyone who’s been to Somalia will tell
you that that hospitality has not been
lost these traders and merchants came
from the Arabian Gulf they came from
Persia they came from India where I was
born
hence the court though they they came
from Southeast Asia and even China
constant exchanges meant that each of
these places left an indelible mark on
Somalia’s language dress architecture
cuisine aesthetic and most curiously
Somalia’s music but how many of us know
this history the history of Somalia is
one of the greatest multicultural
crossroads in the world we speak of
crossroads like Turkey we celebrate
crossroads like Singapore but why not
Somalia Somalia rarely enters the
established narratives of history until
1991 which is to say it has no agency
until it has collapsed Africa at large
is little to no mention or agency until
it is either conquered or colonized or
until it has slipped into a violent
state of affairs which then immediately
demands media coverage to fit what
author Chimamanda Adichie calls the
danger of the single story but as we
know history is not a dead thing
Yvonne van Sertoma the late great
Guyanese historian who challenged the
established perceptions and narratives
of African history said quote history is
not a mere accumulation of facts it is
the creation of a different vision a
different way of feeling seeing and
believing what happened in history or
what we think happened in history
affects our reflexes our prejudices our
conception of ourselves how we conceive
of others how we treat ourselves and how
we are treated by others but we must not
seek to revive this history but rather
to return to it because it has been only
a very small period in the grand scheme
of human history in which the peoples
countries and cultures of the global
South to which Somalia belongs have not
enjoyed status at the very apex of world
affairs to craft a route by which to
return we need not look back 700 years
to the time of eben Battuta as joyous of
a journey as that was but I would argue
we need look back only 30 to 40 years to
the mogadishu of the 1970s and the 1980s
this era was by no means perfect but it
was an era in which spirits were high
and euphoria flowed in abundance
allowing for a musical and cultural
revolution to take place the likes of
which I have never experienced or worked
with before we have to tell that story I
first and foremost I’m a storyteller I
began my working life as a journalist
but working on an international news
desk where the news images and news
stories of Somalia followed a tired and
shallow portrayal a portrayal that was
unable to exceed past the bounds of this
single story this inspired me to do
something different it inspired me to
tell real palpable vivid stories
that breathed life into an already
living history there are many ways to do
this you can keep these memories fondant
alive as the great Nero Dean fara has
done through his noir novels you can
maintain libraries of Somali poetry as a
company in Stockholm Sweden has done or
you can excavate one of the greatest
most durable most revealing time
capsules and cultural artifacts we have
recorded music in whatever format you
might find it vinyl LPs cassette tapes
master tapes master reels these are the
best and even compositional notebooks
once music is recorded that’s it it is
forever immortalized a collection of
these recordings forms one of the most
revealing a Stillwater reflection of the
social and political happenings of the
day you can quite literally feel history
in music its ability to transport time
and place is quite frankly unrivaled I
wanted to find a way to harness the
power of music so I started a record
label or a music company if you will
that seeks to capture and reveal to the
world the music of misunderstood
cultures the cultures I have worked with
Haiti in the Caribbean the Cape Verde
Islands off the coast of West Africa and
now Somalia have all experienced the
same trauma the trauma of displacement
the trauma of many having to forcibly
leave their home and a trauma of this
nature and an exodus of this nature
leaves one’s international image fragile
and an international image just as once
perception of history determines a great
deal of our confidence the first and
most enduring casualty of war I believe
is the historical grandeur and the
cultural backbone of a people restoring
that or rather returning to it is as
important if not more than any political
diplomatic or military settlement our
project to revive compile
and make globally available Somali music
from before the war is at the end of the
day a human story our project seeks to
humanize Somalia my colleagues and I
began researching Somali music on
YouTube and the Somali language corners
of the internet where in recent years
vast amounts of music collections have
been uploaded by people who understand
the value of keeping these songs alive
and keeping them alive in any way they
can possibly do this uploading of mass
collections has actually been part of a
greater trend in the last few years of a
greater reassertion of Somali identity
that the world has seen this trend has
culminated into a movement which has led
to the creation of archives Somali music
archives that have been built to last in
our Gaza the Red Sea foundation amassed
and got together a collection of over
10,000 cassette tape recordings the
story of Somali cassette tapes is very
interesting a lot of these cassette
tapes were actually dispatched to
Djibouti and Kenya during the war to
keep them safe and one radio operator
told me he even buried them deep under
the ground so that airstrikes could not
hit them because he understood the value
of these cultural artifacts and we spent
close to one month 12 hours a day
immersing ourselves in this archive
digitizing a very large portion of it
thankfully for the sweet spicy Somali
tea we could keep going immersing
ourselves in this archive for as long as
we did sent us on quite the journey the
most obvious revelation of this seller
of fine aged Somali sounds was that it
was quite simply incredible music some
of the best myself or my team had ever
heard
raucous rhythms rugged horns celestial
synthesizers and stalking bass lines
came alive alongside majestic voices
like Abdullahi Zuffa
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
like father mo kasi
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
like he wound it up
[Music]
[Music]
these are of course just some of my
favorites this talk is too short for me
to go into the vast and complex universe
that is Somali music the deeper
revelations of this archive evoked the
great memories of this city it evoked
the status of Somalia as an
international cultural junction it
evoked memories of the Aruba the Jazeera
and the Juba hotels were youthful bands
like if the endured or and sure arrow
serenaded cosmopolitan crowds it evoke
memories of the National Theatre where
what Barry provided unforgettable
soundtracks
as you can see from this image there are
a great deal of women in the web berry
theater troupe and this was perhaps one
of the most potent reminders that this
archive offered was of the empowerment
of women in this period of artistic
endeavor in comparison to neighboring
countries like Ethiopia and Sudan each
of which has left their mark on Somali
music Somali music is set apart by the
prevalence of powerful and adored female
singers female singers like McCool live
father no costume like Hebrew Noah like
Marion Musa like Marion hacia like Sarah
Dawa like sada Ahmad among so many more
who were often more prolific than their
male counterparts the presence of female
singers is inseparable from the
evolution of Somali music Kidada here
who performed with both way Barry
in Hargeisa and Mogadishu told me that
through music women became the pride and
joy of the public Somali music of days
long gone offer a compass through which
Somalia can reclaim its rightful
identity it offers a compass through
which Somali can reclaim its rightful
image and its rightful history and even
though we are accessed one of the
largest archives of its kind
we have merely only scratched the
surface and this then offers an
absolutely wonderful opportunity if
someone has been seduced by the
stereotypes of Somalia and they find
themselves dancing to Somali music in
London New York Hong Kong Tokyo or
wherever there is a good chance that
they will never view this place the same
again because now they will have to
reconcile with the fact that the single
misleading story they have been told
about Somalia is being shattered by
music of the very highest order
music they perhaps thought not possible
in Somalia in your parents basements or
your grandparents homes or your ons or
your uncle’s or perhaps even your owning
you don’t know it there are cassettes
there are old recordings these sounds
are across the city and across this
country they are in the hands of the
Diaspora but the real treasures lie here
the more of those sounds that can be
revived restored and disseminated
worldwide will form the most potent
weapon Somalia has in its long struggle
to reestablish itself to the grandeur of
the 14th century and the swinging city
of
from the 1980s and the 1970s when the
music of older generations is
reintegrated into the Somali and global
imagination it will form the foundation
by which Somali music and once again
thrive it can even give birth to a
nascent Somali music industry and when
that industry is able to stand on its
own two feet I can safely assure you
there are dance floors around the world
that are eagerly awaiting these sounds
there are DJs around the world eagerly
waiting to play these sounds and there
are live music web venues eagerly
waiting to book and host live Somali
bands so dig up revisit return to the
music that’s so beautifully colors your
rich history play those songs loud play
them loud for yourself play them loud
for Somalia thank you very much
the fame moroccan explorer perhaps the
world’s greatest traveler covered more
ground than Marco Polo arrived on the
Bona Dea Coast in the same city we are
seated in today what he came across the
time was the wealthiest most powerful
city not only in East Africa but some
historians say the Indian Ocean trading
system at large which of course at the
time was the centerpiece of the global
economy
so if Rome was the king of the
Mediterranean Mogadishu certainly was
the pearl of the Indian Ocean
when a bomba – – arrived his ship was
anchored off the coast large groups of
young Somali men went out to greet him
they offered his crew food they placed
them under their protection and they
handled their business affairs for the
entirety of their stay in Mogadishu such
renowned hospitality invited traders
seafarers merchants Admirals and even
royalty to these shores and I think
anyone who’s been to Somalia will tell
you that that hospitality has not been
lost these traders and merchants came
from the Arabian Gulf they came from
Persia they came from India where I was
born
hence the court though they they came
from Southeast Asia and even China
constant exchanges meant that each of
these places left an indelible mark on
Somalia’s language dress architecture
cuisine aesthetic and most curiously
Somalia’s music but how many of us know
this history the history of Somalia is
one of the greatest multicultural
crossroads in the world we speak of
crossroads like Turkey we celebrate
crossroads like Singapore but why not
Somalia Somalia rarely enters the
established narratives of history until
1991 which is to say it has no agency
until it has collapsed Africa at large
is little to no mention or agency until
it is either conquered or colonized or
until it has slipped into a violent
state of affairs which then immediately
demands media coverage to fit what
author Chimamanda Adichie calls the
danger of the single story but as we
know history is not a dead thing
Yvonne van Sertoma the late great
Guyanese historian who challenged the
established perceptions and narratives
of African history said quote history is
not a mere accumulation of facts it is
the creation of a different vision a
different way of feeling seeing and
believing what happened in history or
what we think happened in history
affects our reflexes our prejudices our
conception of ourselves how we conceive
of others how we treat ourselves and how
we are treated by others but we must not
seek to revive this history but rather
to return to it because it has been only
a very small period in the grand scheme
of human history in which the peoples
countries and cultures of the global
South to which Somalia belongs have not
enjoyed status at the very apex of world
affairs to craft a route by which to
return we need not look back 700 years
to the time of eben Battuta as joyous of
a journey as that was but I would argue
we need look back only 30 to 40 years to
the mogadishu of the 1970s and the 1980s
this era was by no means perfect but it
was an era in which spirits were high
and euphoria flowed in abundance
allowing for a musical and cultural
revolution to take place the likes of
which I have never experienced or worked
with before we have to tell that story I
first and foremost I’m a storyteller I
began my working life as a journalist
but working on an international news
desk where the news images and news
stories of Somalia followed a tired and
shallow portrayal a portrayal that was
unable to exceed past the bounds of this
single story this inspired me to do
something different it inspired me to
tell real palpable vivid stories
that breathed life into an already
living history there are many ways to do
this you can keep these memories fondant
alive as the great Nero Dean fara has
done through his noir novels you can
maintain libraries of Somali poetry as a
company in Stockholm Sweden has done or
you can excavate one of the greatest
most durable most revealing time
capsules and cultural artifacts we have
recorded music in whatever format you
might find it vinyl LPs cassette tapes
master tapes master reels these are the
best and even compositional notebooks
once music is recorded that’s it it is
forever immortalized a collection of
these recordings forms one of the most
revealing a Stillwater reflection of the
social and political happenings of the
day you can quite literally feel history
in music its ability to transport time
and place is quite frankly unrivaled I
wanted to find a way to harness the
power of music so I started a record
label or a music company if you will
that seeks to capture and reveal to the
world the music of misunderstood
cultures the cultures I have worked with
Haiti in the Caribbean the Cape Verde
Islands off the coast of West Africa and
now Somalia have all experienced the
same trauma the trauma of displacement
the trauma of many having to forcibly
leave their home and a trauma of this
nature and an exodus of this nature
leaves one’s international image fragile
and an international image just as once
perception of history determines a great
deal of our confidence the first and
most enduring casualty of war I believe
is the historical grandeur and the
cultural backbone of a people restoring
that or rather returning to it is as
important if not more than any political
diplomatic or military settlement our
project to revive compile
and make globally available Somali music
from before the war is at the end of the
day a human story our project seeks to
humanize Somalia my colleagues and I
began researching Somali music on
YouTube and the Somali language corners
of the internet where in recent years
vast amounts of music collections have
been uploaded by people who understand
the value of keeping these songs alive
and keeping them alive in any way they
can possibly do this uploading of mass
collections has actually been part of a
greater trend in the last few years of a
greater reassertion of Somali identity
that the world has seen this trend has
culminated into a movement which has led
to the creation of archives Somali music
archives that have been built to last in
our Gaza the Red Sea foundation amassed
and got together a collection of over
10,000 cassette tape recordings the
story of Somali cassette tapes is very
interesting a lot of these cassette
tapes were actually dispatched to
Djibouti and Kenya during the war to
keep them safe and one radio operator
told me he even buried them deep under
the ground so that airstrikes could not
hit them because he understood the value
of these cultural artifacts and we spent
close to one month 12 hours a day
immersing ourselves in this archive
digitizing a very large portion of it
thankfully for the sweet spicy Somali
tea we could keep going immersing
ourselves in this archive for as long as
we did sent us on quite the journey the
most obvious revelation of this seller
of fine aged Somali sounds was that it
was quite simply incredible music some
of the best myself or my team had ever
heard
raucous rhythms rugged horns celestial
synthesizers and stalking bass lines
came alive alongside majestic voices
like Abdullahi Zuffa
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
like father mo kasi
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
like he wound it up
[Music]
[Music]
these are of course just some of my
favorites this talk is too short for me
to go into the vast and complex universe
that is Somali music the deeper
revelations of this archive evoked the
great memories of this city it evoked
the status of Somalia as an
international cultural junction it
evoked memories of the Aruba the Jazeera
and the Juba hotels were youthful bands
like if the endured or and sure arrow
serenaded cosmopolitan crowds it evoke
memories of the National Theatre where
what Barry provided unforgettable
soundtracks
as you can see from this image there are
a great deal of women in the web berry
theater troupe and this was perhaps one
of the most potent reminders that this
archive offered was of the empowerment
of women in this period of artistic
endeavor in comparison to neighboring
countries like Ethiopia and Sudan each
of which has left their mark on Somali
music Somali music is set apart by the
prevalence of powerful and adored female
singers female singers like McCool live
father no costume like Hebrew Noah like
Marion Musa like Marion hacia like Sarah
Dawa like sada Ahmad among so many more
who were often more prolific than their
male counterparts the presence of female
singers is inseparable from the
evolution of Somali music Kidada here
who performed with both way Barry
in Hargeisa and Mogadishu told me that
through music women became the pride and
joy of the public Somali music of days
long gone offer a compass through which
Somalia can reclaim its rightful
identity it offers a compass through
which Somali can reclaim its rightful
image and its rightful history and even
though we are accessed one of the
largest archives of its kind
we have merely only scratched the
surface and this then offers an
absolutely wonderful opportunity if
someone has been seduced by the
stereotypes of Somalia and they find
themselves dancing to Somali music in
London New York Hong Kong Tokyo or
wherever there is a good chance that
they will never view this place the same
again because now they will have to
reconcile with the fact that the single
misleading story they have been told
about Somalia is being shattered by
music of the very highest order
music they perhaps thought not possible
in Somalia in your parents basements or
your grandparents homes or your ons or
your uncle’s or perhaps even your owning
you don’t know it there are cassettes
there are old recordings these sounds
are across the city and across this
country they are in the hands of the
Diaspora but the real treasures lie here
the more of those sounds that can be
revived restored and disseminated
worldwide will form the most potent
weapon Somalia has in its long struggle
to reestablish itself to the grandeur of
the 14th century and the swinging city
of
from the 1980s and the 1970s when the
music of older generations is
reintegrated into the Somali and global
imagination it will form the foundation
by which Somali music and once again
thrive it can even give birth to a
nascent Somali music industry and when
that industry is able to stand on its
own two feet I can safely assure you
there are dance floors around the world
that are eagerly awaiting these sounds
there are DJs around the world eagerly
waiting to play these sounds and there
are live music web venues eagerly
waiting to book and host live Somali
bands so dig up revisit return to the
music that’s so beautifully colors your
rich history play those songs loud play
them loud for yourself play them loud
for Somalia thank you very much
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