After being blown away by a few tunes – probably just as you will be after listening to this – Samy Ben Redjeb travelled to the infamous capital city of Somalia in November of 2016, making Analog Africa the first music label to set foot in Mogadishu.
On his arrival in Somalia Samy began rifling through piles of cassettes and listening to reel-to-reel tapes in the dusty archives of Radio Mogadishu, looking for music that “swam against the current”.
The stars were aligned: an uncovered and unmarked pile of discarded recordings was discovered in a cluttered corner of the building. Colonel Abshir – the senior employee and protector of Radio Mogadishu’s archives – clarified that the pile consisted mostly of music nobody had manage to identify, or music he described as being “mainly instrumental and strange music”. At the words “strange music” Samy was hooked, the return flight to Tunisia was cancelled.
The pile turned out to be a cornucopia of different sounds: radio jingles, background music, interludes for radio programmes, television shows and theatre plays. There were also a good number of disco tunes, some had been stripped of their lyrics, the interesting parts had been recorded multiple times then cut, taped… more
credits
released December 13, 2019
Graphic Design: Kathrin Remest
Mastering: Nick Robbins (Soundmastering)
Lacquers: Frank Merritt (The Carvery)
Interview and Biography:
Samy Ben Redjeb, Abdullahi Ahmed ‘Somaliyow’, Ali Mohamed Hussein, Mohamed Khalif and Jay Freistadt.
Propaganda Machine, Reel vs. Cassette and Disco Tsunami written by: Abdulahi Ahmed ‘Somaliyow’, Jay Freistadt and Samy Ben Redjeb
Translation:
Abdullahi Ahmed ‘Somaliyow’,
Ali Mohamed Hussein and Mohamed Khalif.
Text Editing:
Jay Freistadt and Ian Preece
Pictures Courtesy of:
Xiddigta Oktoobar, Abdullahi Ahmed ‘Somaliyow’, Salah Hariri and the Library of Congress.
Special Thanks to:
All the good people at Radio Mogadishu:
Nasser Hussein, Abdullahi Amin, Abdullahi Barre and Hamud Ibrahem Hamud
And to the MogaDisco Collective for selflessly allowing us to use the name they coined:
Yemi Brown, Kaspar Loftin, Jack Bryant and Iyobosa ‘Bosa’ Igbinoba.
This Compilation is dedicated to Colonel Abshir Hashi Ali.
