Somali Night Fever: the little-known story of Somalia's disco era(Documentary)

[Manafesto]

In the 1970s and 80s Mogadishu's airwaves were filled with Somali funk, disco, soul and reggae. Musicians rocking afros and bell-bottom trousers would perform at the city's trendiest nightclubs during the height of the country's golden era of music. But it was short-lived: a brutal civil war began, musicians fled to all corners of the world and the vibrant music scene came to an end.

Habib and Abdulkadir, two former band mates and best friends, lost touch after the war started, and neither knew if the other was alive. But both kept playing music. Somali Night Fever tells the story of the people keeping Somali music alive, including these two friends, separated by war but united by the music of the golden era.
This is before Saudi Arabia exported their Wahabnism to us and everything went to shits.

#RIP Somalia

 

[Hassan2000]

Its good that its over

 

[Manafesto]

Its good that its over

Why is this good? this is the golden era of Somali music and creativity, now back home no one is allowed to sing or play any type of music instrumentals or drums without getting killed, I guess you want Somalis to be the only country that live in this backward and 7th century Islamic pagan laws.

 

[Sloane Ranger]

The Somali music scene is still thriving. Disco is a different era but most of the singers from that era that are still alive continue to make music.

 

[Hassan2000]

Why is this good? this is the golden era of Somali music and creativity, now back home no one is allowed to sing or play any type of music instrumentals or drums without getting killed, I guess you want Somalis to be the only country that live in this backward and 7th century Islamic pagan laws.

Mohamed bk is a singer tho

 

[Manafesto]

A Trunk Full of Love Songs: Somali Songs, 1955-1991: The Maryan “Aryette” Omar Ali Collection
FEBRUARY 14
♥Happy Valentine’s Day!♥

An appropriate day to highlight a collection of (mostly) love songs in the Archive of World Music:

When the Somali popular music expert Maryan Omar Ali first met historian Lidwien Kapteijns in person, she brought with her a trunk full of love songs and other sung poetry. Maryan spent her life carefully curating this collection to represent the most productive Somali (and some Djiboutian) songwriters and artists from the 1950s, when Somalia was fighting to gain independence, through the 1990s, when political instability and civil war plagued the struggling nation. The tapes collected from this period now form part of the Archive of World Music, where preservation and repatriation efforts are ongoing. Let’s take a glimpse into this important collection of Somali songs.


Some of the tapes in the collection (photo courtesy AWM).

In 2017, Ahmed Samatar, a professor of International Studies at Macalester College, and Lidwien Kapteijns, a professor of history at Wellesley College, began depositing the first batches of around 500 audio cassettes recordings of popular songs recorded in Somalia between 1955 and 1991, collected from radio broadcasts and privately circulated cassettes by the life-long collector of Somali popular songs and leading expert on the subject, Maryan Omar Ali.


Maryan Omar Ali (photo courtesy of Lidwien Kapteijns).

Maryan “Aryette” Omar Ali (1977-2011) spent her life collecting and curating Somali sung poetry—songs of love, war, despair, and patriotism. As a child in Somalia, she was immersed in the world of singers, poets, and musicians, growing up in a community with some of Somalia’s most famous artists. She attended rehearsals, brought refreshments, and eventually became a leading advocate for Somali arts and culture, a pursuit that lasted a lifetime.
The primary genre in this collection is known as hees or heello, a modern form of sung poetry accompanied by, depending on the era, hand clapping, frame drums, and other musical instruments, such as the electric piano/synthesizer, organ, guitar, end-blown flute, clarinet, saxophone, violin, and Arab lute (kaman in Somali or ‘ud in Arabic). Other notable genres include qaraami and praise songs for the Prophet. Many of the genre names used to refer to Somali songs overlap in their usage depending on a number of factors, including time period.

Most of these recordings are songs of the nationalist period (1955-1974), a period after which the military regime (1969-1991) became increasingly oppressive. During this time, the emergence and success of the popular song had much to do with the roles the radio stations in cities like Mogadishu and Hargeisa assumed in the period leading up to and following independence, in addition to the Somali government’s investment, albeit meager, in the cultural production of poets, playwrights, singers, and musicians.

Somalia is unique among East African countries, or the rest of the world for that matter, in its cultural unity through language. While the country is and has been fraught with political disunity, culture has bound them together. The songs in this collection reflect this unity and the importance of song in times of political and social struggle.


Maryan Omar Ali was born in Djibouti and grew up in neighboring Somalia.
One of the most important functions of popular music in the tumultuous decades from the 1950s to the 1990s involved the ability of artists to weave together tradition with modernity in the face of change and instability. Many artists used popular songs as a call to action for unity in as a remedy for tribalism. Some of the songs preached unity through themes of Qaranimo, or Somali nationalism, calling for allegiance to the state. Other songs spread ideas of uniting under Islam, charging individuals to look toward the ‘umma (global Islamic community) as a solution to clan rivalry and civil war.


Photo of Lidwien Kapteijns (courtesy Wellesley College)

Another important component of the songs in this collection is the presence of powerful female voices in a patriarchal society. In her book, Women’s Voices in a Man’s World: Women and the Pastoral Tradition in Northern Somali Orature, c. 1899-1980 (1999), Lidwien Kapteijns writes about the nuanced ways in which poetry, including sung poetry and the popular songs of this collection, give voice to female subversion of this patriarchy, highlighting the importance of women in Somali society.

Many of the love and lament-themed songs that form the qaraami genre were frowned upon by religious authorities and conservative society, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Mixed gender dancing and socialization, women on stage, and themes of love and desire were viewed as irreverent. Thus, the women who made a living performing this music were particularly vulnerable to oppression. Pressing on, many singers throughout the decades, those such as Magool and Sahra Axmed–both featured in this collection–were heroic in their efforts to change conceptions of art, gender relations, and cultural unity. For more on individual artists and songs in the collection, and suggested readings and resources, here is a link to the finding aid to the Maryan “Aryette” Omar Ali Collection.


Written by: Joe Kinzer, Senior Curatorial Assistant, Archive of World Music

A Trunk Full of Love Songs: Somali Songs, 1955-1991: The Maryan “Aryette” Omar Ali Collection

♥Happy Valentine’s Day!♥ An appropriate day to highlight a collection of (mostly) love songs in the Archive of World Music: When the Somali popular music expert Maryan Omar Ali first met hist…

blogs.harvard.edu

 

[Deleted L]

Have you been living under a rock? Music is still played in Somalia and Somali musicians still exist, songs are done at weddings, hotels, national parades, social media and the cringy app called "Tiktok."

 

[Villainess]

embarrasing, lost people. we were slaves to the italians if not the "wahabism"

 

[486th President]

Go to somaliland if you want music or whatever

 

[Kurobecky]

In the 1970s and 80s Mogadishu's airwaves were filled with Somali funk, disco, soul and reggae. Musicians rocking afros and bell-bottom trousers would perform at the city's trendiest nightclubs during the height of the country's golden era of music. But it was short-lived: a brutal civil war began, musicians fled to all corners of the world and the vibrant music scene came to an end.

Habib and Abdulkadir, two former band mates and best friends, lost touch after the war started, and neither knew if the other was alive. But both kept playing music. Somali Night Fever tells the story of the people keeping Somali music alive, including these two friends, separated by war but united by the music of the golden era.
This is before Saudi Arabia exported their Wahabnism to us and everything went to shits.

#RIP Somalia

Disco is the bomb. The Motown stuff is the only R&B music I’ll listen it. Me and my dad would religiously watch Soul Train.

 

[manosi789]

oh man such a beautiful time, imagine driving from marka to kismayo listening to 80's classics on a beautiful coastal somali road with the somali flag ornament shaking on your rear view mirror.