Awale Kullane
Africa on your Street | Host Entry | Awale Kullane
I grew up in Mogadishu in the 1980s near the heavily guarded presidential headquarters of the Somali dictator. I remember following the crowd watching the Kabeebeydance and the Niiko dance and the drums in the Sayid Mohammed Square (Isgoyska-sayidka) once every month. The national radio was always on with revolutionary songs (Kacaan). Between the presidential headquarters and the Sayid Mohammed Square was the most famous former national exhibition centre which became the home of Somalia’s treasured musicians and songwriters. Mogadishu to me was a very diverse centre of subcultures of agro-pastoral and pastoral communities with very diverse music. I was one of those who fled and left behind everything apart from my memory. Civil war changed everything and memories are treasured. The key that ignites my memory today is music. Now I have been in England just over a decade, music allows me and my fellow Somalis to remember good and bad times, old feelings and old perceptions, lost friends and families, school trips and family picnics, beautiful girls and school bullies, riding the Somali buses where, as diverse as different jukeboxes, each vehicle its style of music depending on who was driving that day. I appreciate all Somali music past and present from classic to present rap/hip-hop versions of Somali music. But today it’s also about identifying myself with the Somali in me. I hope you will also share your memories and appreciation for all kinds of Somali music and dance here on the website.