Showing 1 - 6 of 6
Exile songs resurface
Life, John Clewley, Published on 27/09/2025
» From the early 1970s to the 80s, Mogadishu boasted one of the Horn of Africa's liveliest night scenes with groups from this "Golden Era" like Dur Dur Band entertaining at clubs and hotels across the city. A coup in 1991 and subsequent civil war put a stop to the music and musicians had to go underground or migrate. Those who went by the latter route took their music and culture across the Somali diaspora (one of Africa's largest).
Echoes of Persia
Life, John Clewley, Published on 22/10/2024
» The santur is an ancient stringed instrument, a dulcimer, with 72 strings that can be dated to 500 BC. Assyrian and Babylonian stone carvings show the instrument back in 669 BC. The instrument spread widely in the Middle East and later further afield where it morphed into the hammered dulcimer, the qanun, cimbalom, Indian santoor and even the Thai classical instrument, the kim.
Independent in Indonesia
Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/12/2022
» Interest in recorded music, led by DJs and "crate-diggers", has shone a light on some fascinating popular music genres over the past 20-odd years. Soundway Records, set up by Miles Claret in the UK, released its first compilation in 2002 on Afrobeat, funk and fusion from Ghana in the 1970s, and since then has released compilations on African, Caribbean, Latin and Asian music (mainly focusing on the period from 1950s to 1980s, when popular genres were being created by newly independent countries).
Mourning three legends
Life, John Clewley, Published on 13/08/2019
» Three legends died recently, each one of whom made important and distinctive contributions to their own musical cultures -- molam producer and impresario Theppabutr Satirodchompu, South African musician and bandleader Johnny Clegg, and New Orleans songwriter, pianist and bandleader Art Neville.
Remembering Kak Channthy
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/04/2018
» The news last week that the lead singer of the Cambodian Space Project, Kak Channthy, had died in a car crash in Phnom Penh has shocked her fans in Cambodia and across the globe. She was 38 years old.
Killer rhythms from the Congo
Life, John Clewley, Published on 06/03/2018
» The influence of Congolese rumba, sometimes called soukous in the Anglophonic world, on East and Southern African music is considerable. You can hear the influence of Congolese guitars on Kenyan, Zimbabwean and Tanzanian popular music. Indeed, in my last column I wrote about how this guitar-based sound had even influenced the music of Orchestra Marrabenta in Mozambique.