PARIS Media coverage of Somalia is usually focused on factional fighting and devastation wrought by warlords and their militias. Not much is said about Somalis’ calls on the warlords to end their depredations. A young Somali rapper, K’naan, has stepped into the void to convey to the world his people’s yearning for peace.
As we walked into the concert hall in the middle of the show, K’naan was on stage, intoning “Hobaalayo heedhee,” a famous Somali choral refrain that might be roughly translated as “Sing along with me.”
He was practically draped in the Somali flag, wearing a pale blue tunic bearing the five-cornered white star on his left breast. The place was jammed with young people swaying to the hip-hop music and the powerful lyrics delivered in English interspersed with Somali words and refrains. There was excitement in the air, as the singer furiously pounded on a drum slung over his shoulder, chanting about love and peace.
The audience seemed to have caught fire as he began singing his most famous tune, “Soo Bax” (pronounced soo bah), which means “come out.” In a direct challenge to Somalia’s warlords, in a sort of a peaceful battle cry, he calls on them in Somali: “Come out of my country / you’ve spilled enough blood / you have killed too many people / you have caused a ton of trouble / come out of my country… ” He continues in English: “I wanna talk to you directly / Somalia needs no gunmen / Mogadishu used to be a place / where the world would come to see / what to do / where to go / I got to be a refugee / Somalia needs no gunmen…”
The 28-year-old K’naan, who now lives in Toronto, is a survivor of the interminable Somali wars. He fled the country with his family in 1991 soon after the outbreak of the civil war. He celebrates his people and their culture in his songs, rich musical mixes marrying hip-hop with Somali rhythms, percussion and acoustic guitars.
Contrary to some hip-hop artists, he does not use his music to brag about guns and violence, but to call for peace in Somalia and to appeal to the warlords and armed thugs to put down their weapons. His moving lyrics are laden with messages aimed at educating the outside world about the plight of the his nation.
But his strongest words are reserved for the warlords. In one of the songs on his debut album, “The Dusty Foot Philosopher,” he expresses his outrage against their brutalities: “See they rack bodies not grain / chop limbs not trees / spend lives not wealth / seek vengeance not truth / moist pain not plants / sharpen feuds not minds / defend kinship not honor.”
Back in Somalia, the warlords do not seem to be very concerned, at least for now, about K’naan’s growing appeal; they are too busy fighting among themselves for turf in Mogadishu. Among them are the newly-minted “warlords of water” who take control of water wells in the drought-stricken southern regions of the country, condemning hundreds of thousands of people to death from thirst and starvation.
Will such scoundrels ever leave the country or heed the plea for peace of a hip-hop artist singing to European and North American youth audiences?
The slim, soft-spoken rapper, whom we met at the end of the show, appeared confident and self-assured about the noise he is generating with his fierce lyrics.
“When I recorded “Soo Bax” in the studio, I imagined myself being in front of gunmen and communicating directly with them,” he explained.
Although the warlords may not be listening to K’naan’s message of peace now, the singer may yet connect with the wider public in Somalia, including the gun-toting child soldiers who serve in the militias. Moreover, as growing audiences in Africa, Europe and North America take notice of his lyrics, the endless atrocities being perpetrated by the warlords will become better known to the world. “Soo Bax” is now featured on the soundtrack of the best-selling soccer video game – FIFA 2006.
It might not be too long before the powerful rallying cry for peace of this hip-hop artist makes a deep dent into the armor of the warlords.
Abdulqawi A. Yusuf is a Somali international lawyer based in Paris.
Source: IHT, May 31, 2006
