mogadisco: dancing mogadishu (somalia 1972-1991)
Francisco Espregueira
November, 2016. The Analog Africa people set foot in Mogadishu, Somalia starting an incessant search for tapes, listening reel-to-reel in the dusty archive of Radio Mogadishu. Truthful to their own spirit, they were looking for something special, something lost, something that “swam against the current”. The story behind Mogadisco: Dancing Mogadishu is an adventure that took three troubled years to complete, starting with the discovery of a pile of uncovered, unmarked and discarded recordings. As Colonel Abshir - the senior employee and protector of Radio Mogadishu's archives - puts it: “mainly instrumental and strange music”.
From the ‘70s until the beginning of the ‘90s the Somalian music scene experienced something that transverse the whole African continent. Inputs from popular music across the world were taken and represented in style on each country’s terms. James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the funk movement marked the ‘70s. Fela’s afro-beat then took over, spreading like wildfire throughout other continents too. At the same time Bob Marley was busy kick-starting reggae-mania, which became such a phenomenon that even the police and military bands began playing it. Suddenly… the ‘80s. Trousers got tighter as the disco tsunami hit the country. Michael Jackson appeared with a new sound that would revolutionize Somalia's live music scene. Many of the songs presented in this invaluable compilation were created in several stages throughout the city, exploding with such a diversity of influences.
Mogadisco was not Analog Africa's easiest project. Tracking down the musicians - often in exile in the diaspora - to interview them and gather anecdotes of golden-era Mogadishu was a challenge that further values the label’s work. Many of those tales, stories, dramas are included in the massive booklet that accompanies Mogadisco: Dancing Mogadishu, due to drop tomorrow via Germany-based Analog Africa. An era spanning almost three decades that is kept alive in digital, CD and vinyl formats.
“I have dedicated my life to this place. I’m doing this so it can get to the next generation; so that the culture, the heritage and the songs of Somalia don’t disappear.”