For years, Samy Ben Redjeb has been traveling across Africa and Latin America in search of forgotten sounds: vintage funk and myriad hybrids, offshoots, and variants that proliferated in the post-colonial era.
Though civil life in Mogadishu has rebounded since a new government was formed in , the Al Qaeda-linked militant group Al Shabab remains a threat: In late December, terrorists plowed a truck laden with explosives into a busy intersection in the capital, killing at least He spent weeks going through stacks of aging reel-to-reel tapes and digitizing the most enticing finds; he spent years more tracking down surviving musicians, many now living in exile, and interviewing them.
The best material here sounds unlike anything else. Both songs make a strong argument that dividing lines, whether geographical or musical, are purely notional. It is a sad irony that musicians so opposed to the fixity of borders would have their fates determined by the whims of mapmakers: All three Dur-Dur songs here were recorded abroad, while the band was exiled in Ethiopia and Djibouti; Shimaali and Killer fled to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where Killer died in The musicianship, too, is stellar.
But the backstories of these songs make some of them even more remarkable. Radio Mogadishu, a government station, played a unifying role, helping draw people to the capital from remote corners of the nation.
They brought with them the musical styles of their towns and villages and, in the city, blended those with cosmopolitan stylesβrock, disco, reggaeβcarried on the airwaves from even farther away. Over the years, he has seen the station targeted by Al Shabab, bombarded by Americans, and ransacked by looters; in one confrontation, he threw himself upon a grenade-toting thief who was determined to gain control of the building.
