Islamist Extremists Ban Ali Farka Toure's Music in His Hometown

The bastards: from the BBC last month: 6 December 2012 Last updated at 12:24 ET Blues for Mali as Ali Farka Toure's music is banned By Thomas Fessy BBC News, Bamako After making northern Mali's "Blues" music famous around the world, Ali Farka Toure is a legend in his home town of Niafunke, where he was mayor until his death in 2006. The memorial to him is still intact but his music is no longer heard in the town's streets. "The town has gone silent," says 28-year-old farmer Ousmane Maiga (not his real name) over the phone. "It's way too quiet". Islamist fighters have taken over Niafunke, which sits on the banks of the river Niger 100km (60 miles) south-west of Timbuktu. They have introduced a strict social code: Women and girls must be covered, young men cannot wear loose trousers and all forms of music are banned. Residents say two young men were whipped last month after they were caught smoking tobacco. Toure was just one of a host of stars who have turned music into one of Mali's best known exports. "Music is so much part of our culture," says Mr Maiga. "It's everywhere here, I miss listening to it over tea with my friends on the weekend. I miss attending wedding ceremonies and baptisms." All time great It was the music of northern Mali that Toure took to the world, its lilting, mournful tones reaching an international audience when he teamed up with his US soulmate, Ry Cooder, to produce the Grammy-winning album Talking Timbuktu in 1994. He was ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as among the 100 great guitarists of all time and starred in the Martin Scorsese documentary, Feel Like Going Home, which traced the roots of the blues back to West Africa. But these roots are now threatened. Niafunke and other towns in northern Mali have been plunged into a cultural darkness. Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda have banned everything they deem to be against Sharia, or Islamic law. "They are destroying our culture," says another of Mali's most famous singers, Salif Keita. He is currently back home in Mali, preparing for a world tour to accompany the release of his latest album. "If there's no music, no Timbuktu, it means that there is no more culture in Mali," he adds, sitting in the grounds of his home on the small island he owns on the river Niger outside the capital, Bamako. Keita is referring to the destruction in June of the ancient shrines in Timbuktu's mosques. The buildings were Unesco World Heritage Sites but considered by the Islamists to be idolatrous. Dozens of musicians have fled south since the crisis began, among them Khaira Arby "the Voice of the North". She cannot return to her home in Timbuktu because Islamists have threatened to cut out her tongue, according to members of her band who have also fled south. She first stayed with a cousin but has resigned herself to renting a house in Bamako after she realised that she could be displaced for longer than she thought. "Islamists have jammed radio airwaves," she tells me while her guitarists and percussionist adjust their instruments for an evening rehearsal in her small living-room. The two guitars are plugged into one small amplifier producing a heavily distorted sound. The band's equipment was looted when rebels marched into Timbuktu. Arby sits on the edge of her sofa. She looks sad, but soon her eyes close and her voice climbs and falls with the guitar riffs. Ringtones banned Song completed, she tries to make sense of what is happening to her country. "They're even confiscating mobile phones and replacing ringtones with Koranic verses," she laments. From Timbuktu to Gao, telephones have become the only way to listen to music lately. Those who have risked turning a stereo on have immediately attracted the attention of the Islamist police. Their equipment would be either seized or smashed. Read the full story and additional information HERE.

Guitar from Botswana

Cameroon's breast ironing tradition

Breast ironing tradition targeted in Cameroon
From Nkepile Mabuse, CNN

(CNN) -- Every morning before school, nine-year-old Terisia Techu would undergo a painful procedure. Her mother would take a burning hot pestle straight out of a fire and use it to press her breasts.

With tears in her eyes as she recalls what it was like, Terisia tells CNN that one day the pestle was so hot, it burned her, leaving a mark. Now 18, she is still traumatized.

Her mother, Grace, denies the incident. But she proudly demonstrates the method she used on her daughter for several weeks, saying the goal was to make her less desirable to boys -- and stave off pregnancy.

A study found that one in four girls in Cameroon have been affected by the practice.

The U.S. State Department, in its 2010 human rights report on Cameroon, cited news reports and said breast ironing "victimized numerous girls in the country" and in some cases "resulted in burns, deformities, and psychological problems."

There are more than 200 ethnic groups in Cameroon with different norms and customs. Breast ironing is practiced by all of them.

....
In 2006, a German nongovernmental organization exposed the practice, which at the time was done mainly in secret.

Now, charities have embarked on campaigns to educate mothers in Cameroon that sex education -- not breast ironing -- is the solution to ending teenage pregnancy.

Dr Sinou Tchana, a gynecologist in Cameroon, has seen breast glands that were destroyed. She also saw one case of cancer, though she says it couldn't be established whether the ironing caused or only exacerbated the cancer.
....

The full story with video report is HERE.

Yoruba tribal marks a fading tradition

CNN

Tribal scars custom drying up in Nigeria
By Christian Purefoy, CNN
July 20, 2010 12:10 p.m. EDT

Osogbo, Nigeria (CNN) -- In a dark room, the High Priestess used her ceremonial knife to cut two teardrop scars beneath her baby grandson's eyes. As baby Enitan cried out, the marks ran red with blood.

It took only a few moments, but scarred him for life.

In her small mud-brick home in southwest Nigeria, priestess Ifaponle Ogunjinmi performed the Yoruba tradition of giving tribal marks to the youngest member of her family.

"The tribal mark is to identify the family," Ifaponle said. "Everyone in the family must have it."

Ifaponle rubbed the secretion of a snail on Enitan's cheeks and then pressed dark charcoal dust into the open wounds to stop the bleeding. To finish the ceremony, a chicken was brushed across Enitan's head.

"The snail is for cooling the wounds, like water on fire," Ifaponle said. "And the chicken is to clear the body of all illness. It will be sacrificed in two days."

Yoruba tribal scars have a variety of patterns and meanings.

Most obviously, they appear as a series of cuts and lines across the face to identify a person's family and regional heritage. Others, appearing as lizards or scorpions anywhere below the face, are a form of body art.

But they all have spiritual significance.

Meta Ogunjimni, the child's father, led us into another dark, musty room at the back of his home. Sunlight from a small window cast an eerie light on a dark-red costume in the corner of the room, a shrine to the local goddess of Ifa, surrounded by a variety of bottles and blood-stained ornaments.

The costume consists of a large ornamental mask used in local religious ceremonies. It is decorated with three small wooden faces, each adorned with scars across their cheeks.

"I have inherited these facial marks from my grandfather," said Meta, pointing at the scarred wooden faces on the masquerade, "they help protect me."

Though facial scars can be found across Africa, they are becoming increasingly restricted to people in the rural regions.

The Nigerian government has moved to outlaw the practice, but many states have yet to approve the law. Many human rights organizations argue that the scarring of children is abuse and have often associated the practice with female genital mutilation.

However, regardless of their efforts, facial scars are becoming harder to find for a different reason -- displacement of old ways by Western influence.

"Our grandfathers, who made tribal marks compulsory for everyone have died," Ifaponle said. "In the modern world, many fathers don't allow any marks on their children."

In her arms, Enitan suckled on a bottle of warm milk. He will carry his Yoruba traditions with him for life, but he may well be one of the last.

Read the story and view photographs HERE.

From the Kol Israel Orchestra to a Pygmy Choir: The Musical Life of Simha Arom

A nice story on ethnomusicologist Simha Arom, with audio as well. Check it out here at Forward.

A.N.C. and South African Song Controversy

NYT

pril 7, 2010
A.N.C. Issues Caution in Singing Polarizing Songs
By BARRY BEARAK

JOHANNESBURG — The governing African National Congress on Wednesday told its members to be “circumspect” in singing songs from the anti-apartheid struggle, retreating from its earlier defense of a contentious song — “Shoot the Boer” — that in recent days has become associated with the killing of a white supremacist leader.

The song has enjoyed a resurgence since it became a part of the public appearances of Julius Malema, the president of the A.N.C. Youth League.

Boer means farmer in Afrikaans, the language spoken by the descendants of Dutch settlers. It is sometimes used as a term for Afrikaners. The lyrics include the words “shoot the Boer” and “shoot them with a gun.”

Last week, two judges, in independent proceedings, banned the song. The A.N.C. called these decisions unreasonable, contending that the lyrics were metaphorical and needed to be viewed in a historical context. It said it would try to get the rulings reversed.

For his part, Mr. Malema, an extremely difficult man to silence, vowed to continue his renditions of “Shoot the Boer.” This persistence took on new meaning when the white supremacist leader, Eugene TerreBlanche, was killed on Saturday. The police attributed the crime to a dispute with two farmhands over pay. But some of Mr. TerreBlanche’s followers blamed the song.

There were calls for revenge, but these have been retracted.

Mr. TerreBlanche, 69, the leader of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, was a prominent newsmaker in the early 1990s. But his influence had waned since then.

On Tuesday, there was a confrontation when the accused first appeared in court. People mourning Mr. TerreBlanche waved flags that signified white rule and sang a racist song. Meanwhile, blacks chanted “hero, hero, hero” as the accused passed by.

The shouting between the groups ended in a standoff. Indeed, though passions run high in Ventersdorp, where Mr. TerreBlanche lived, the events seem merely a matter of conversation around the rest of the nation.

Nevertheless, the statement of the A.N.C. leadership, citing “the environment currently prevailing in our country,” asked its members to “restrain themselves” lest they be used as scapegoats by right-wing troublemakers.

That especially applied to “liberation songs” that can be seen as “contributing to racial polarization of society,” it said.

The statement said the A.N.C.’s executive committee would discuss the appropriate use of liberation songs at a meeting in May.

No mention was made of “Shoot the Boer,” just the euphemism “the song that is hotly debated currently.” Nor was there mention of the song used at rallies by President Jacob Zuma, “Bring Me My Machine Gun.”

See original story of many additional links to previous parts of the story.

Binyavanga Wainaina's "How to Write about Africa"

A devastating (satirical) masterpiece of African literary tropes in GRANTA, which came up in one of TN Coates' great comment discussions.

How to Write About Africa
By Binyavanga Wainaina

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.

..........
There's a lot more. read the full post HERE.

Senegalese Monument to Open

Reuters

Jesse Jackson, Akon mark African Renaissance
Unveiling of Senegal’s controversial new monument draws a crowd
By Diadie Ba
Reuters
updated 3:33 a.m. MT, Sat., April 3, 2010

DAKAR - Senegal's monument to the "African Renaissance" will be formally unveiled before foreign dignitaries and celebrities on Saturday.

Slightly bigger than New York's Statue of Liberty, the giant group of man, woman and infant is perched on a hill overlooking the Senegalese capital Dakar.

President Abdoulaye Wade has invited about 30 heads of state to the inauguration, a day before the 50th anniversary of Senegal's independence. U.S.-Senegalese rapper Akon and U.S. civil rights activist Jesse Jackson will also attend.

Opponents of the statue — which is billed as representing Africa's rise from "centuries of ignorance, intolerance and racism" — are due to protest in central Dakar on Saturday despite a ban on all marches by town authorities.

In the latest blow to Wade's project, a leading imam on Friday issued a fatwa condemning it.

The $28-million statue has been criticized as a waste of money in a country with crumbling infrastructure and welfare provision, while Muslims have branded it "un-Islamic" for presenting the human form as an object of worship.

"We have issued a fatwa urging Senegal's imams this Friday to read the holy Koran in the mosques simply to ask Allah to preserve us from the punishment this monument of shame risks bringing on Senegal," imam Massamba Diop told followers at his central Dakar mosque, using the term for a religious ruling.

Soviet-style realism
Pro-Wade senator Ahmed Bachir Kounta, a Muslim scholar, said the statue was a cultural project and rejected the charge of idolatry.

"Every architectural work sparks controversies — look at the Eiffel Tower in Paris," he said of the 19th-century structure labeled by early critics as an expensive eyesore.

Wade, who at 83 has confirmed he will seek re-election in two years' time, has said he was personally involved in designing the statue. Critics have said it is more Soviet-style realism than traditional African art form.

The monument has been built by North Korean laborers, another source of discontent in a country where formal employment is scarce.

In Sierra Leone, pop music is a beat that drives politics

LAT

latimes.com
In Sierra Leone, pop music is a beat that drives politics
Political debate in the African nation often takes the form of protest songs; some have even toppled governments. Mostly illiterate, citizens rely heavily on singers for an independent take on events.

By Scott Kraft

January 3, 2010

Reporting from Freetown, Sierra Leone

Everywhere he went in Freetown's ghettos, a dreadlocked young vocalist named Innocent heard the plea. People were fed up with lies, theft and corruption. This government had to go, they said, and they begged Innocent to speak out.

So late one night, Innocent drove to Forensic Studios, a rundown pair of rooms on a clamorous downtown street. The sound engineer was asleep on an old sofa, and Innocent shook him awake.

"Let's do something," Innocent said, "and release it tomorrow."

The single "Injectment Notice" -- "eviction notice" in the lingua franca of Sierra Leone -- helped spark a ballot-box rebellion in 2007. "I told people: If you don't like this government, vote them out," he said. "And it actually happened."

Sierra Leone's engaging blend of hip-hop, Afro-pop and reggae sounds flourished after the end of the brutal, decade-long civil war in 2002, and the number of radio stations playing those tunes swelled from nine to more than 50.

Today, music here is more than simple entertainment. It has become the vehicle for a decibel-busting national political debate. With the sixth-highest rate of illiteracy in the world and a deep suspicion of the ruling elite, Sierra Leone's 6 million people rely heavily on their pop stars -- often educated and well-traveled -- for an independent take on what's going on.

"These songs are the only way the masses have of expressing what they want to say," said Emrys Savage, a record producer and former DJ who wears Che Guevara T-shirts and goes by the name King Fisher. "For us, it's all about bringing social change."

In recent weeks, though, Innocent, a grandson of Nigeria's Afrobeat mega-star Fela Kuti, has been locked in a musical smack-down with one of the country's most famous singers, Emmerson Bockarie, over a question much of the nation is asking: How is the new government doing?

The answer isn't so clear in a fledgling democracy with vast unmet needs and high expectations, a nation where the new government felt compelled to create an Office of Attitudinal Change to inspire patriotism. "Our goal is to remake and rebrand the image of this country" and encourage Sierra Leoneans to change their "bad attitudes," said Allieu Kamara, a former Washington insurance salesman who runs the office.

Both Innocent and Emmerson had helped light the fire that consumed the last government. Even before Innocent released his protest song, Emmerson had recorded "Borbor Bele" ("Pot-Bellied Boy"), which speared corpulent politicians who sold themselves to the highest bidders.

The protest song industry largely fell silent when President Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People's Congress took office in 2007, riding a wave of promises to end corruption, improve healthcare and bring electricity and clean water to the hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leoneans without it.

Emmerson, for one, had high hopes. "I was confident that this government would bring about change, and that's why I kept silent," he said. "I really believed."

But when he returned from a U.S. tour a few months ago, he didn't like what he saw. "It's been more than two years and we're still not seeing any foundation or any road being built to change," he said. "This government is feeling too comfortable and too loved. They need to work harder."

Emmerson went back to the recording studio and laid down the track for "Yesterday Betteh Pass Tiday" -- "Yesterday Was Better Than Today."

"Whenever we think we have a savior," he sings, "we see a government that betrays the people. Maybe tomorrow will be better, but no one knows tomorrow. I don't know about you, but my yesterday was better than today."

That message of discontent touched off a firestorm.

Emmerson is "simply the best lyrical musician in Sierra Leone," said the editor of the New Citizen newspaper, but to argue that yesterday is better than today "is absurd."

.....

The the full story with images HERE.

In modern Cameroon polygamy doesn’t pay

CSM

In modern Cameroon polygamy doesn’t pay

When life is more complex than just fields to tend, a passel of wives is more a financial strain than a status symbol.
By Alexis Grant | Contributor / November 13, 2008 edition

Fongo-Ndeng, Cameroon

Benoit Ndi Wamba didn’t know exactly how many children were in his family. Like most Cameroonians born into large polygamous families, he never had a reason to count.

But with money tight after the death of his father, the 23-year-old was partly responsible for finding money to pay this year’s public school fees for his siblings. So he ticked off their names, one by one. There was lanky Jean, 21. Sylvain, 18, a top student. Janvier, an 11-year-old who wears, in this French-speaking province, a T-shirt that reads “Fabulous.” And Mr. Ndi Wamba himself was entering his first year of university.

Those were just his mother’s children. Then there were his other brothers and sisters, born to his late father’s other three wives. A handful of grandchildren and cousins also lived with the family, complicating the count. All referred to one another as brother and sister, explaining only after much prodding who, as Cameroonians say, has the “same mother, same father.”

Yet one thing was clear: With more than a dozen children who hoped to attend school this year, the Ndi Wamba family faced a pile of fees.

It was a problem Ndi Wamba swore his own children would never face; he would marry just one woman, he said, and have significantly fewer children than his father.

“If it was just my three brothers and me, we would not be having this problem,” Ndi Wamba said sternly, a folder of university enrollment forms tucked under his arm.
An increasing number of men in this central African nation are coming to the same conclusion, rejecting the polygamous lifestyles of their fathers and opting for monogamy instead. With the rising costs of school, healthcare, and food, it’s simply too expensive to have a large family, they say.

• • •

I met the Ndi Wamba family six years ago, when I was a college student studying polygamy. They were supposed to serve as a case study, but instead became my second family during the three weeks I lived with them in the village of Fongo-Ndeng, in western Cameroon.

When I returned this September for a visit, their lives had much changed. Nearly a year after the death of their 78-year-old husband, the four wives still donned all black, mourning not only his spirit but also the loss of his government pension. With the help of friends and family back home, I paid tuition for the women’s children and others who live on the compound, 18 in all.

Again I chatted with the women as they cooked over open fires on the ground in their kitches, alternating among the four dirt-floor houses that, along with their husband’s empty house, created a semicircle around an often-muddy yard. When he was alive, the husband, too, split his time among his wives, spending one night with one woman, the next with another.

Traditionally, polygamy has been a symbol of wealth and status, particularly in rural areas. Village chiefs until recently married as many as 25 women, while other men typically wed between two and eight wives.

The lifestyle has its advantages, mainly the production of a labor force to cultivate fields of corn, beans, and root crops like manioc. But modernity has taken its toll, even on families like the Ndi Wambas who have shunned other changes such as electricity and running water. Crops can feed many mouths, but only hard currency pays school fees, which start in secondary school around the equivalent of $45 annually and mount for higher grades.

“Before, maybe polygamy was good,” explains Charlotte Nguimfack, who has four children with her monogamous husband. “Life wasn’t difficult like it is now.”

While those economic difficulties are driving polygamy’s decline, other factors also are at play, including the spread of Christianity, which prohibits polygamy. And as more women become college-educated, some have begun to demand monogamy.

In the early 1990s, a quarter of married men in Cameroon had more than one wife, according to the country’s National Institute of Statistics. By 2004, just 11 percent were polygamous.

Likewise, the percentage of women who had at least one co-wife dropped to 30 percent in 2004 compared with 39 percent in 1991, institute data show.

Similar decreases are occurring in other countries across central and western Africa, says Savage Njikam, who oversees the University of Douala’s anthropology department.
“The more educated people are, the less likely they are to have the same household as their grandfather,” says Mrs. Njikam, a social anthropologist. “But you still will find educated women who will accept being second wives.”

Monogamous men and women cite another reason to avoid polygamy, one their polygamous counterparts are reluctant to discuss. Some multiwife households suffer from jealousy and conflict.

Sallahou Aboubakar, who grew up in Cameroon’s Muslim north in a two-wife home, says his mother’s disputes with her co-wife influenced him to choose monogamy.

“The wives don’t stay peaceful,” says Mr.. Aboubakar, who lives with his wife and their newborn baby in Yaounde, the capital. “It always causes problems.”

His wife’s aunt, Adamou Patou, overhearing the conversation speaks up to illustrate the point, telling a tale that has her family, all sitting on mats on the floor, roaring with laughter.

When her husband was alive, she says, she and her co-wife fought endlessly, mostly over where the husband would sleep. One morning, after the husband had spent too many nights with Patou, her co-wife entered the bedroom to find the husband freshly showered and back in bed. She threw a bucket of charcoal dust into the room, covering the bed and her husband in gray powder.

Despite such stories, some young Cameroonians continue to keep polygamy alive. Bertrand Folepe, who married his girlfriend when she became pregnant six years ago, took a second wife two years later at the urging of his parents. His father, who had eight wives, wanted him to marry a woman from his village.

Mr. Folepe didn’t protest; he is proud to carry on the tradition. On display in his family’s sitting room, which he shares with both wives, are portraits of each couple, side by side.
“If in the future I have a lot of money, I’ll take more [wives],” says Folepe, who makes a living selling small livestock.

Folepe, who lives with his wives and seven children in the small city of Dschang, has urbanized the polygamous lifestyle. Instead of dwelling in separate, adjacent homes like his family in the village where he grew up, his entire family shares one house. Each wife has her own bedroom, but the two share an outdoor kitchen, swapping cooking duties each week.

Other city-dwelling men have modernized polygamy differently, by creating separate households of independent families that share a father.

Even as traditional polygamy declines, it’s still common for men and women to have multiple partners, by either going outside their marriage or divorcing one spouse before marrying another.

Martha Ngum, head of the sociology and anthropology department at the University of Buea in southwest Cameroon, calls the latter trend “serial monogamy.” Women are driving the shift, she says, because they now attend university, work outside the home and are financially independent more than ever before.

But outside Cameroon’s cities, it’s still a man’s decision whether to take more than one wife and a woman’s responsibility to accept his choice.

Decades after accepting their husband’s decision to engage in polygamy, the Ndi Wamba wives now face another duty: providing for their many children without his financial support.

On the few days when the women aren’t cultivating the fields, they earn petty cash selling snacks at local markets. The wives hope their eldest sons, like Benoit, contribute small income. They also look to relatives for help; several of the children already have left the village compound to live with an uncle or grandmother.

For this family, the years ahead will not be easy. But as the Ndi Wamba women often say, “We must endure.”

People in Need Ads

Some rather effective and striking donation solicitation photographs (by Carl Stolz) from the Dutch charity Cordaid Mensen in Nood (People in Need). Wow.

Afropop Worldwide: Cuban Abakuá

From Afropop Worldwide, which includes photographs, sounds, and links.
Ivor Miller 2007

Place and Date: Brooklyn, New York
2007
Interviewer: Ned Sublette

VOICE OF THE LEOPARD: IVOR MILLER talks to NED SUBLETTE



Ned Sublette: I’m talking to Dr. Ivor Miller, Research Fellow in the African Studies Center of Boston University and author of the forthcoming Voice of the Leopard, from University Press of Mississippi in the Fall of 2008. What does Voice of the Leopard mean?

Ivor Miller: The voice of the leopard is the main symbol of the Ekpe society of the Cross River region of Nigeria and Cameroon, which was re-created in colonial Cuba as the Abakuá society. And it’s a symbol in both. Essentially the leopard is a sign of royalty all over Central West Africa and the Calabar zone, and it’s a symbol of their political autonomy. Every village in the Cross River region that has Ekpe has their own way to manifest the voice, which means, “we are independent.”

NS: In Cuba the Abakuá occupies a unique position in the history of the society. Can you give us a sort of thumbnail of what Abakuá has meant in Cuba?

IM: Abakuá is at the foundation of Cuban society. It was founded around the 1830s in Havana by African Ekpe members who had been enslaved and brought over. They reorganized themselves in the cabildos and they would not allow their offspring born in Cuba to join, because of the well-known tensions between the so-called old world and new world people. So eventually they decided to establish a lodge of their offspring, the black Creoles, and they called it Efik Butón, after a settlement in Calabar. To do that they had to create a fundamento [consecrated object], which represented the autonomy of that lodge.

NS: When you say they created a lodge, that’s a word that we associate maybe with the Masons or the Odd Fellows.

IM: The great Cuban scholar Don Fernando Ortiz used to refer to Abakuá as “African masonry,” because there are similarities in the fact that it’s a graded system – there are titles – and they are an independent group of mutual aid. The function of Abakuá was to buy people out of slavery, so Abakuá is known as a force of liberation in Cuban history. And in the wars of [Cuban] independence, representatives of Abakuá lodges interacted with Freemasons – people like Antonio Maceo, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, all the leaders of the Mambí independence army, were Masons – so they’re parallel systems.

NS: What about the aspect of secrecy? The Abakuá is a secret society of men…

IM: Yes. Abakuá is exclusively for men, and there’s a lot of reasons for that we could talk about. But another way of saying a secret society is to say an initiation society. Once one is initiated, one takes oaths about maintaining discretion about what one learns. What they call the esoteric knowledge, the insider’s information, are the secrets. There are secret societies all over the world. The Vatican is a secret society. Whatever happens at the top layers of the U.S. government, those are secrets too. Essentially these secret societies or initiation schools are really schools of learning, and in order to begin to learn, you’ve got to take an oath.

NS: Now these hermetic societies also existed in the Cross River Delta of Africa. How did they function there?

IM: In the Cross River region, Ekpe is the indigenous government. As an example, in order to found a settlement – okay, we want to take my family and move to a new place? We’ve picked a piece of land. The first thing we do is create the Ekpe lodge, and then we create the settlement, because that is the symbol that we are an independent settlement. You can’t come here and do anything you want, you’ve got to deal with Ekpe. It’s the indigenous system. The legal system, the judiciary, the executive branches, are all Ekpe.

NS: In place of a strong centralized government, there were Ekpe lodges throughout the region.

IM: That’s exactly it. Whereas the Yoruba have a centralized system, Ekpe was how a series of autonomous villages could trade and interact in meaningful ways. If one was an Ekpe member in the Cross River region, one could travel anywhere and be safe. Because wherever there was a lodge, you were protected.

NS: So there were offshoots of this system that were transported to Cuba. But unlike the Yoruba system – or santería, or Ifá, or Ocha, or Lucumí, whatever you want to call it – which has gone all over the world now, Abakuá has remained only in Havana and Matanzas province, not even in Oriente in Cuba. Only in these two parts of Cuba and only there in the entire New World. Why is that?

IM: Because the Abakuá have retained what they were given by the Africans with a remarkable orthodoxy. In order to establish a lodge, one has to get the permission of all the elders. There has to be a collective consensus. And that’s part of what makes Abakuá so important. They want to control the morality of their citizens, as it were, of their initiates. And if it starts spreading anywhere, it will be transformed and perhaps used for other means.

NS: So it has been a decision of the elders in Cuba that this not spread.

IM: Exactly.

NS: How did you get involved with studying this, and what is your status vis-à-vis this practice?

IM: I first went to Cuba in 1991 as a student of the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional to study dance -- I danced professionally in New York -- and really became interested in Cuba from being in New York and going to toques [Yoruba ceremonies] with Puntilla [Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos]. While there [in Havana] studying the Lucumí [Yoruba] system, in my andanzas [wanderings] in the city, I was introduced to a gentleman [7] who was in his 90s. His grandfather had come over from Calabar. He wanted to tell me the story of this, and he was an incredible storyteller. Andrés Flores was his name. And all the members of his family were members [of Abakuá]. He was not. That gave him certain liberty to tell me the story.

NS: Because an initiate can’t tell the stories.

IM: Or one would run the risk of being castigated.

NS: Well, they’re quite serious about their secrecy within this practice. Can you explain about how the militancy with which this secrecy is maintained?

IM: You have to understand the context within which Abakuá was founded and created: the extreme oppressive society of colonial Havana. Anyone who reads the history knows that the Year of the Lash, 1844, was an extreme repression. Abakuá, in order to survive, have maintained discretion in order to not announce their presence.

NS: So there are things you can talk about and things you can’t talk about.

IM: And in much of the Cuban popular music we’re going to listen to [in the Hip Deep episode in which portions of this interview appear], there is Abakuá language. It can be spoken, because people don’t understand what they’re saying. So in “Ritmo Abakuá” of the Muñequitos de Matanzas, they’re essentially greeting the first lodge in Cuba, Efik Ebutón, they’re greeting it as a way of saying, “we thank God for the birth of Abakuá. We’re members from Matanzas, and we greet Havana.” And this is all in Abakuá language.

NS: And this is recorded in 1956.

IM: It’s the first Abakuá recording from Matanzas, as far as I know.

NS: So if you’re not an initiate, there are sounds you’re allowed to hear, and sounds you’re not allowed to hear. I recorded the Muñequitos de Matanzas, as you know, playing a number called “Abakuá Makánica,” in which they play traditional Abakuá drums. And that’s allowed. But in their ceremonies, there’s a drum you can see that does not make sound.

IM: Exactly. There’s a drum that is called the eribó – the sese eribó, which is a silent drum, it’s symbolic. It represents the mother of Abakuá. This refers to the foundational myth of how Abakuá was perfected, in a place called Usagaré, now known as Isangele in southwestern Cameroon. The story is that a princess went to the river to get some water. She put her ceramic jar in the water, and inadvertently, a fish entered it, and the fish made a roaring sound. She put the jar on her head and she became in effect the first initiate. This is a story to talk about divine creation. She’s the universal mother, and when men are initiated they’re effectively reborn, so as in any other religion, initation in Abakuá is a rebirth, symbolically.

NS: And this story is what Benny Moré is referring to when he sings “En el tiempo de colonia / tiempo de senseribó.” [“In colonial times, times of the senseribó”]

IM: A classic! That’s a classic. Yes, so this is the drum that’s symbolic and it doesn’t make a sound. And why? What is the message there? This is Ekpe philosophy. If you know esoteric secrets, you don’t talk about them. That’s the message in the silent drum.

NS: Now what about the sound? The voice of the leopard is a sound. What is that sound?
IM: In Ekpe they describe it as a mystic sound that emits from the butame, the temple, and only the high levels of society’s leaders know what makes that sound. It’s not known by others. But the sound is the symbol that Ekpe’s in session, and those who are not members should move away, should stay clear.

NS: Do you consider Abakuá a religion? Do you consider it a society? Do you…

IM: Well, Abakuá describe it as a religion. But that’s a very interesting question, because it’s an exclusive thing that not everybody can join. So it’s really a club of prestige that has a very deep spiritual base.

NS: And this is based on a sound.

IM: Mm-hmm…

NS: But it’s a secret sound. It’s a sound that we can’t play on the radio.

IM: Exactly.

NS: Why can’t we play it on the radio?

IM: [pauses] Well, because that might be seen as disrespectful by the leadership. They don’t take this lightly at all. And as a matter of fact, on none of the recordings that I know from either West Africa or Cuba is that sound reproduced.

NS: That sound is never heard outside the sacred region.

IM: Exactly.

NS: And you can’t really talk about it.

IM: Exactly. But the point is that it’s not the vehicle that makes the sound that’s important. It’s the sound that is adored, that is worshipped, that is seen as the voice of God. It’s connecting humans with the divine.

NS: And at the same time, the sound has been evoked frequently in popular music by Abakuá members. It’s not the same sound, but it’s evoked.

IM: Exactly. As you well know, some of the same recordings by Sexteto Habanero in the 20s, there’s a track called “Criolla Carabalí”, we’ll hear some of the bongó drum, the glissade-making.

NS: When the bongosero moistens his finger and slides it across the drumhead, making a friction sound.

IM: It’s a reference.

NS: There are friction drums all over Africa, that make various sounds. One place the sound is referenced, and it’s a unique recording -- could you talk about the importance of Arsenio [Rodríguez]’s recording of Abakuá music?

IM: Well, one of the incredible things about the story of Abakuá is that like other African-derived traditions it’s expressed most fully through artistic means – through popular music, through dance, through theater. The commercial recordings made by Abakuá people and people who love Abakuá, whether they’re members -- or not, like Arsenio – these commercial recordings are important to understand the history of Abakuá. And New York has played a fundamental role in this story. Many Cubans have come to New York throughout history. Ignacio Piñeiro was one. Chano Pozo was another. And Arsenio in New York in 1963 recorded “Canto Abakuá,” a fantastic tune. In it he’s evoking Abakuá, and he’s speaking about the relationship of the Congo, of which [religion] he’s a member, and the Carabalí, which is the base of Abakuá. And it’s a very important track for bringing up the relationship between Congo and Carabalí. And also, at the end, there is an evocation of the voice of the leopard by the bass.

NS: In your work, you did something no one else has done: you made a re-encounter between Cuba and Africa. The Ekpe of Cuba, which began in 1830, has continued all this time, but meanwhile, in the Calabar region, the Ekpe society there has also continued. But there was no contact between Cuba and Calabar during all this time, as far as anyone knows.

IM: I don’t know of any contact, if there was. And this is quite a unique situation, because in the Yoruba case, especially between Yorubaland and Brazil there was a lot of contact and moving back and forth. In terms of Cross River and Cuba, as far as we know, there is none. That’s why it’s extraordinary that Ekpe in Calabar can listen to speech by Abakuá, and music and chanting, and understand it and recognize the rhythm and many of the words.

NS: Now tell me about what you did.

IM: From 1991 until the 21st century I was in Cuba documenting history. Cataloguing when each Abakuá lodge was founded, its name in Abakuá language, et cetera, et cetera. Because I recognized there was an incredible story that had not been told about the migration of African peoples and how their actions helped found Caribbean societies. And in order to prove that, in 2004 I was able to go to Calabar.
I brought some videotapes of Abakuá ceremonies. I brought some recordings of Abakuá music. And I gave a talk at the National Museum in Calabar. And the Ekpe people there were overwhelmed. When I played “Criolla Carabalí,” they freaked out. They got up and strated dancing, and they said, “This is the way our parents used to play.” And they recognized the very specific rhythms that the Cubans were playing as the rhythm of a particular grade. The Ekpe system has nine different grades. One of those grades is called bonkó. Bonkó really represents the universal mother, the myth of the woman I talked about, and this is the rhythm that they recognize in the Cuban music. They’re playing the bonkó rhythm. There happens to be a grade in Cuba called bonkó, which is the talking drum that we hear referred to in a lot of the recordings.

Bonkó enchemiyá is the full name of the drum. And as we know from Joseíto Fernández’s recording, “Así Son Bonkó,” and Arsenio Rodríguez’s “Oigan bonkó / Como se gozan en el barrio,” bonkó has become a word that means truth.

NS: How many times have you been to Calabar?

IM: Three times. I went in the summer of 2004, and I brought materials. I met essentially with all the paramount rulers of Calabar, which has three different groups: the Abakpa, which are also known as the Qua Ejagham, and the Efik, which are [known as] the Efí in Cuba, and the Efut, which are [known as] the Efó in Cuba, so I met with all three of these leaderships.

And it so happens that the leader of one of the lodges – Efé Ekpe, Eyo Ema, and the lodge is also known as Ekoritonkó, which happens to be a lodge in Havana -- the leader of this lodge invited me to come to a ceremony soon after I had showed them all this material. During that night they initiated me. It happened that way – “please come to our ceremony” -- and essentially they recognized the importance of this connection with Cuba, and in order to help me with my research, they initiated me so I could actually go to different settlements and talk about Ekpe, because it’s off limits to non-initiates.

NS: So you haven’t been initiated in Cuba, but you have been in Calabar.
IM: Exactly. So I’m unofficial ambassador of Calabar Ekpe to the Caribbean. After the talk in the National Museum, there were some government representatives there, and they announced that they were going to put their support behind this project for the Third International Ekpe Festival. There’s a festival there every December, to which y’all are invited.

NS: I’m there.

IM: And I was able to go with two Abakuá members – Vicente Sánchez and Román Díaz, who both happened to be from the Ekoritonkó lodge of Havana.

NS: And who both live in New Jersey now.

IM: They’re both professional musicians from Havana that now work in the New York area. It was a very spontaneous visit. You know, Abakuá’s a collective society. To have a full conjunto, a full ensemble of Abakuá, you need about ten people, with the dancers, the drummers, the chanters, and all that. We had two. But they did a beautiful job, and we have some recordings of Román chanting to an audience of about 2,000 in Calabar.

NS: What happened when he chanted?

IM: We came to Calabar in December of 2004, invited by the government of Cross River state for the Third International Ekpe Festival. The day we arrived to the Calabar Cultural Center, there was a huge open space, and at what they call the “high table” in Nigeria, where the important people sit, was the governor of Cross River state and the iyamba of the Eyo Ema lodge Ekoritonkó, who were judging the event as a competition of masked dancers. Masked dancers are another thing shared by Ekpe and Abakuá. They represent ancestors, who are there to make sure that the living conduct the ceremonies in the right way, another part of the orthodoxy we talked about.

So Román Díaz and Vicente Sánchez arrive. There’s about 3,000 people there in a circle, about the size of a football stadium, a hundred-yard circle. And the masked dancers come out one by one and are performing. There is no rehearsal for any of this. Román Díaz is asked to come out. He goes over to the percussion ensemble and gets them in a pace that he likes. Which is very easy, because they’re basically playing the same music as the Abakuá do – the same instruments, fabricated in the same way, the same construction. So Román goes out and he starts chanting the phrase about the foundation of Abakuá in Cameroon: Iya, iya, kondondó. And all of a sudden the crowd starts responding, two to three thousand people. Usually an Abakuá ensemble is ten people, but Román is going out there essentially alone, with Vicente on the bonkó. And the entire crowd responds. And then using, of course, Cuban methods, he calls out the masked dancer, who responds to him and enters the competition. He picks up a drum which he uses as the symbolic drum to call out, because the drum is the symbol of authority, so the drum calls out the masked dancer, and he brings it to the high table, just like the others had done. The crowd goes wild, and for everyone there it’s the confirmation that the Abakuá is obviously an extension of their own culture. Iya, iya, kondondó is related to the myth of the woman who goes to the river. Iya is the fish. The fish who was an ancestor, who came back to bring the divine voice. In Efik iya is fish. In Abakuá iya is fish.

NS: What does kondondó mean?

IM: It means arrival. The people understood what he was saying, and they responded. Unrehearsed. Very powerful.

NS: So what then happened in terms of your experience in Calabar with the Abakuá?

IM: Essentially what I’m trying to do as a historian, as a scholar, is facilitate this conversation. Because the first thing is to confirm that this cultural migration actually happened. The Cubans have had no contact with Calabar since the 1830s. They know this language and they’re told it comes from somewhere. But there’s doubt, if you don’t have concrete information, so I’m trying to share information, very much in the way that Pierre Verger did between Yorubaland and Brazil. And the Calabar people are very happy about this, because all of a sudden they have an international dimension to their culture, which they never knew about. Something they’re very proud of. I think this encounter is strenghtening the historical awareness of both groups, and it’s strengthening their practice.

NS: Let’s talk about some of the music we’re going to hear in this program.

IM: There are some wonderful field recordings done through the years. Harold Courlander went to Cuba in the 40s and recorded some beautiful stuff by Alberto Zayas, an important rumbero who had his own group in the 50s, an Abakuá man.

NS: The first person to record rumba in Cuba, in fact. Before the Muñequitos.

IM: That’s right, Alberto Zayas, “El Vive Bien.” So Courlander did a field recording, and then in the 60s, or maybe it was ’59 or ’62, Argeliers León recorded Víctor Herrera. Víctor Herrera had a folklore troupe called Efí Yawaremo – it’s an Abakuá term – and they did in the first-ever Abakuá performance in the National Theater. So he recorded the chant, Iya, iya, kondondó.

Essentially the Abakuá tradition is epic poetry. It’s Homeric in that way. The artists who are chanting it are drawn from an epic tradition, and they’re telling the story of the mythic past, which they believe to be their authentic history. And they are re-creating it in the present, so every time there’s an initiation, they’re recreating the original initiation in Usagaré.

NS: You were telling me about a recording that you believe is the most important, greatest Abakuá recording ever done.

IM: In 2001, a group of Abakuá masters – people who in the barrios performed the ceremonies and, really, the vanguard of the culture -- got together in a studio and they recorded an album called Ibiono. Ibiono is an Abakuá word for music with swing. Each track is to a different territory in Cross River, and they’re laying down the basic elements of their mythic history. They start with the Efó group, who are the Efuts in Cameroon, then they move to the Efí, who are the Efik of Calabar, and they end with Orú, who are likely the Uruan people of the Cross River region. All of them have Ekpe, and all of them interacted to create what’s known as the modern Ekpe system -- a cosmopolitan form of Ekpe.

NS: This is basically an album of poetry.

IM: And it’s an essential album for any student, any scholar, or any practitioner of this cultural system. The importance of this album is that it confirms all the Abakuá chants that have been recorded throughout the 20th century in little fragments. This pulls them all together into one epic narrative. And by the way, this album is only a small piece of what could be [done], what’s out there.

NS: These fragments have been dropped into popular music over the course of Cuban music history since the beginning of recording in Cuba. You made the observation to me when we were talking earlier that whatever the important style of recording Cuban music was in any given era, Abakuá was always present.

IM: As you well know, there’s no recordings from the 19th century, but the titles of habaneras and danzones have Abakuá terms in them.

NS: For example?

IM: [20] Miguel Faílde was using Abakuá rhythms – “andante ñáñigo” [ñáñigo: an Abakuá practitioner]. There was a danza by Enrique Peña, who was Antonio Maceo’s cornet player during the invasion of the west [of Cuba, in 1895]. He composed a danza in 6/8 rhythm called “El ñáñigo” that starts off with the trumpet call to arms of the military band. Abakuá musicians tell me the tune is definitely Abakuá.

NS: Let’s talk about Ignacio Piñeiro.

IM: “Los Cantares del Abakuá” by Ignacio Piñeiro – Piñeiro was an Abakuá man. He was a member of Efori Enkomo, the parent lodge to Muñanga. He was fantastically important in the development of the son. He had a coro de clave [19th-century style of ambulatory choral group] called Los Roncos at the turn of the 1900s. He played with María Teresa Vera in her Sexteto Occidental.

NS: And they recorded “Los Cantares del Abakuá.” Can you tell me about that?

IM: Ignacio Piñeiro is known as the poet of the son. He’s supposed to have composed about 400 sones. A prolific person. A lot of his compositions are in the costumbrista genre – meaning, he was describing the customs of the era, what was happening in the neighborhood. Things he overheard people talking about, or what happened last night at the Abakuá plante, the Abakuá ceremony. “Los Cantares del Abakuá” is talking about the police invasion of an Abakuá plante, because Abakuá, being a symbol of liberty for the black population, being an organized black society, was repressed throughout Cuban history.

NS: And was considered witchcraft by the ruling class.

IM: Everything that the nation was held to be, Abakuá was not. Progress, et cetera. And so Abakuá are essentially the boogeymen of Cuban history. And so “Los Cantares del Abakuá” describes the police invading a plante and how even in spite of that the plante continues, because the people and their culture cannot be stopped.

NS: What is a plante?

IM: A plante is an Abakuá ceremony that happens in the temples and the patios. And we talked about how in the Cross River the Ekpe lodges represent an independent community, and so the temple grounds of Abakuá are off limits to anyone who’s not a member. So it’s a very sacred space, and not anyone can just go there.

NS: So when the Cuban police came to an Abakuá plante…

IM: Well, as I said, the Abakuá have historically been the boogeymen of Cuba, and they’re described as criminals throughout Cuban history, especially the colonial period. So the police thought there was criminal activity happening, they wanted to get inside the temple, and they were not allowed to, so there were conflicts about that. Piñeiro’s describing one of these, and how in spite of the repression, the culture continues. And for me, the important lyric in this is: “En cuanto suena el bonkó, todo el mundo se emociona” -- when the bonkó drum sounds, everyone is moved. This is a very poetic way of talking about the importance of Abakuá music in commercial recordings in Cuba. The Abakuá clave, when it’s heard, people get excited, because it represents their capacity to be autonomous people on their own terms. It’s a symbol of liberation, and so forth.

NS: So, 1928 – Septeto Habanero, “Criolla Carabalí” – what gives?

IM: The composition “Criolla Carabalí” evokes the union of tribes, territories and people through the adoration of Ekpe. There’s a phrase in this track that says, “aba íreme efí, aba íreme efó, bongó itá.” That is, it doesn’t matter if you’re from the Efí tribe or the Efó, our adoration of the Ekpe makes us one. So this 1928 recording is essentially describing the function of Ekpe in Cross River.

NS: But it’s a Cuban son, released commercially on Victor.

IM: Exactly. So this is part of my proposition, that the narratives left by Africans in Cuba are useful to understand African history. And also they’re describing, of course, the Cuban context, because there are lineages of Efí, Efó, and Orú. Each is considered a different territory in the Cross River, and they’re talking about, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, we’re all one in the drum. Because the drum is a universal mother, and we’re reborn as a brother. In Abakuá they say yeniká. It’s like saying ekobio, it’s brother. It means “brother of the same mother,” literally.

NS: Let’s talk about Chano Pozo and Abakuá.

IM: Chano Pozo, one of the great composers of Cuban music in the early 20th century. He came to New York in 1947, ended up playing with Dizzy Gillespie and transforming the sound of bebop music in that era. And a couple of months before Chano met Dizzy, he recorded a very important Abakuá track. As you stated in your book, it’s the first real recording of rumbas de solar. This track is called “Abasí,” which is the prime mover, the supreme being. “Abasí” is God almighty. This track has an incredible swing in the rhythm. Oh my lord, it’s just a beautiful piece. Essentially Chano is evoking an Abakuá ceremony. It’s all in Abakuá language. You start off by greeting the astros – the stars, the moon, the sun, the ancestors, and then you greet the living leadership in all their hierarchies, and then you commence. He introduces himself as a member of the Muñanga lodge of Havana. And there’s a point where he starts to bring out the íreme, who are the representatives of the ancestors, the masked ancestors. And to do that he says, cle-cle-cle-cle-cle, which means, come, come forward, come forward.

Now this track influenced a lot of people in New York at the time. And one of them was Machito. In the 1949 version of “Tangá,” Machito is riffing on Chano Pozo’s cle-cle-cle-cle-cle, when this mambo-tanga begins, and he’s inviting the dancers to come out to the ballroom and get down. And he says, “Cle-cle-cle-cle-cle-cle-cle” – a wonderful example of the influence of Abakuá on the popular music of the day.

NS: What’s the influence of Abakuá on rumba?

IM: It’s profound. I believe that the influence of Abakuá and rumba begins at the foundation of Abakuá itself -- let’s say, in the mid-1800s -- when the Africans were in their cabildos, their nation groups, performing. Down the street in Matanzas there was a Congo cabildo, and on the other block was a Carabalí cabildo, and they would hear their music and they would interact, they’re part of the same community. That fusion, I believe, is how the rumba emerged as a so-called secular form, but all the people involved in it are definitely initiates in all the Cuban traditions, and they’re referring to it each time they play.

The Muñequitos are the best example of that. They’re an all-Abakuá troupe, as well as practitioners of Congo and Lucumí, and their messages are all about the importance of these traditions to the well-being of their communities. And they’re doing it in coded languages, but that’s the message. They’re talking about their philosophical system, and how it’s been a heartbeat for the communities in Cuba.

NS: You identified Agustín Gutiérrez, going back to “Criolla Carabalí” for a minute. We were talking about the referencing of the sacred sound in the bongó playing in son. Agustín Gutiérrez is, I think, one of the key figures in Cuban percussion, and often overlooked.

IM: I’ve heard some speculation that Agustín Gutiérrez came from Santiago de Cuba. I don’t know if that’s rumor or what. There’s also speculation that this sound, this glissade, actually came from Santiago de Cuba with the son already, because there are Carabalí cabildos in Santiago as well. So, whereas Abakuá was only established in Matanzas and Havana in northwestern Cuba, Carabalí culture was throughout the island in the cabildos, and that’s something that really hasn’t been studied yet, but I can tell you an anecdote that Fernando Ortiz got me started on. During the wars of independence, known Abakuá were captured and they were sent overseas, to Ceuta and to Fernando Pó, along with a lot of other people, like Masons and any rebel. And it was in Ceuta that Carabalí members and Abakuá people from Havana and from Santiago could meet and interact, and therein may be part of the history of the son and the story of that sound.

NS: Wow.

IM: So that’s a bomb I’m dropping. It’s unconfirmed, but it’s quite possible.

NS: And ironically, Abakuá were sent to Fernando Pó, which was right across from where Abakuá originally came from in Africa.

IM: Yeah, Fernando Pó is a really incredible story. From the 1820s to the 1840s, the British were centered there, and it was their anti-slavery base. They were trying to stop slavery in Calabar and in that whole Biafra region. Ekpe members were interacting with the British in Fernando Pó, so there was Ekpe going to Fernando Pó also. The Cubans started coming in the 1860s, because part of the Spanish project was to make Fernando Pó another plantation colony. At one point it was called the “African Cuba,” because there were so many Cubans being sent there. [Note: Cigars made from tobacco grown on Fernando Po plantations run by Cuban deportees won the Amsterdam Prize in 1878 ]. And of course the white Cubans didn’t want to go, so they were getting black laborers to go work the tobacco crops in Fernando Pó.

So again, it’s very under-researched, but there is definitely an Abakuá resonance, and perhaps they were meeting with Ekpe there. And some of those people came back. Most died. But many Cubans were able to come back, and if there was a meeting of Abakuá from Havana and Carabalí from Santiago, they each came back having learned more from the other folks.

NS: You identified Agustín Gutiérrez as an Abakuá member.

IM: I learned this from the director of Septeto Habanero in the 90s, because they know the story of their conjunto very well. And yes, he was a member. As I said, when I played this track to Ekpe people in Calabar, they got so excited, started dancing, they responded to this viscerally.

NS: Let’s talk about Tito Rodríguez and “Abanekue.”

IM: So Chano Pozo arrives. He records “Abasí.” With only Cuban musicians, by the way. It’s very interesting to listen to “Manteca” and the Afro-Cuban drum suite that he does with Dizzy Gillespie, because he’s so articulate when he’s chanting Abakuá in “Abasí,” and if you compare that to his chanting with Dizzy, he’s diminishing it, he’s become very discreet. He’s sort of turning it into a scat. Because he knows they’re not going to be able to understand him, and he’s also being respectful of the tradition by not articulating it among people who aren’t members.

So the work of Dizzy and Chano changes jazz history, essentially, and in 1950 Machito does another track called “Negro Ñañamboro.” I consider it to be in the dance instruction genre. You know, usually they’re teaching you how to do the latest step? Here he’s describing the person who catches the spirit. He’s mounted by an orisha, so the shirt is taken off, the shoes are taken off, and the hat is taken off, and he’s saying, “Negro ñañamboro, arrollando como es.” He’s dancing like it should be done. But ñañamboro is – there are two Abakuá phrases, ñaña is the masked dancer, and Embemoro is an Abakuá lodge. So it’s a playful use of Abakuá themes, but he’s evoking ritual in the mambo context in the Palladium. Kinda nice.

In the same year, Tito Rodríguez does “Abanekue,” which is a beautiful Abakuá-inspired dance tune. The title “Abanekue” means “initiate.” Some people in Cuba say obonekue, but the term is also abanekue, which is what the Efik call it. This is the earliest recording of Abakuá material by a Puerto Rican that I know.

NS: How did Tito Rodríguez, who was a Puerto Rican, learn about this?

IM: I wish I knew. That’s a great question. It’s an expression of the interaction of the musicians from all over the Spanish Caribbean in New York, and their mutual support and enthusiasm.

After Tito Rodríguez did “Abanekue” in 1950, there’s been some amazing recordings by Puerto Rican bands. El Gran Combo did “Írimo,” which is íreme, the masked dancer. And it’s a wonderful dance tune. This is popular music. And they’re talking about the íreme coming out, the representative of the ancestors, and interacting with the bonkó. Now what’s amazing for this – talk about the Abakuá influence in the rumba. That’s exactly what happens in the rumba – the caller and the drum bring out the dancer, and they begin to interact. It’s the same structure. Then another important track is La Sonora Ponceña, who did “Congo Carabalí,” which is a fantastic Abakuá-inspired track, which I hope you can play.

NS: Can you talk about the role of Abakuá in Puerto Rican culture in general? They have that famous word…

IM: Which is?

NS: Chévere.

IM: Chévere, qué chévere, qué chévere. I was just in Venezuela, where chévere is in every other sentence as a term of affirmation. What’s so incredible about using music as a way to understand Abakuá -- the perspective we get is totally different from what’s in the official histories of Abakuá as criminals, as something negative, like, “watch out, kids, don’t go out, the Abakuá will get you.” Because chévere is a positive term of affirmation. To be chévere is to be, that’s great, it’s positive, what could be better. It’s an Abakuá title, they say Mokongo machévere, because Mokongo was a valiant warrior who, thanks to him, the society was created in Africa. And the term Mokongo machévere is in almost all the Abakuá recordings that we’ve mentioned, somewhere. Usually it’s the last phrase – Mokongo machévere. It’s in the Muñequitos “Ritmo Abakuá.”

NS: Let’s talk about Mongo Santamaría, a figure who just gets bigger as time passes.

IM: In the 50s in New York, the mambo was happening, and the involvement of Puerto Ricans cannot be underestimated. It’s tremendous. Tito Rodríguez, Tito Puente. When Mongo came on the scene, Tito Puente hired him in his band – another example of Puerto Ricans supporting and sustaining this culture. Mongo ends up recording a very important Abakuá track called “Bríkamo” in the 1950s. I think around 1958 Mongo records “Bríkamo.” And Bríkamo is a Carabalí tradition in Matanzas, it’s sustained by the Calle family. They’re very famous rumberos.

NS: Co-founders of the Muñequitos.

IM: Exactly. And Bríkamo – the Abakuá language is called Bríkamo, and Bríkamo is understood to be a reference to Usagaré, the place where the woman got the fish in the river and Ekpe was perfected. So Mongo lays this track down with Willie Bobo and Francisco Aguabella in 1958.

NS: Now what about Julito Collazo?

IM: To talk about Julito Collazo, we’ve gotta talk about [choreographer] Katharine Dunham, a very important figure in the Caribbean cultural scene in New York in the 1940s and 50s, and onwards. Katharine Dunham went to Cuba, where she hired some Abakuá musicians for her international troupe to tour the world, and she did Abakuá-inspired pieces. One was called “El ñáñigo.” Katharine Dunham hired Julito Collazo, and brought him to New York, where he became a foundational figure in the culture of santería, in the culture of batá music…

NS: …and in the culture of palo…

IM: Exactly. And Julito taught a lot of people. René López, who organized the Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, worked with Julito Collazo. Mongo and Julito went on to record a very important track in the 70s – I think, 1976, called “Ubane,” with Justo Betancourt. “Ubane” uses jazz harmonies, and it’s an Abakuá track, praising an Abakuá lineage, Efí Obane. It just so happens that Oban is a very important Ekpe village of the Ejagham people in the Cross River region, so again, when I play this for people in the Cross River they get it immediately, and they’re amazed that their town is remembered 200 years later in Cuba.

NS: Ivor Miller, thank you so much for sharing your deep experience with us today. I wish we could go on longer because this is obviously endless, but this has given me a lot to think about.

IM: Well, thank you. This is really part of a process, and it’s been a real privilege for me to share this information and be part of this historic connection. And the Ekpe festival in Calabar is ongoing. It’s meant to be an annual event, and details are posted up on Afrocubaweb, so folks can go there and check that out.

NS: www.afrocubaweb.com

Gnawa in NYT travel section

New York Times
May 11, 2008
Music Issue
Rockin’ the Casbah
By STEVE DOUGHERTY

FROM his perch on a rooftop terrace near the crenelated western ramparts of the walled city, a visitor from England watched the sun set in spectacular display over the Atlantic Ocean. As it disappeared on the cloudless horizon, the sun’s rays cast a golden glow on a rising crescent moon decorated on the eve of the summer solstice by a silvery alignment of planets and stars.

“Nice touch, that,” quipped Bill Corbett, a 39-year-old London photographer, D.J. and music fanatic whose visit to Essaouira, an exotic, wind- and sun-swept Moroccan city on the northwest coast of Africa, for the 10th-annual Gnawa and World Music Festival, would prove a transforming experience. “This really is a midsummer night’s dream.”

And one with an exhilarating soundtrack — courtesy of 25 Moroccan Gnawa musical brotherhoods, whose exuberant, hypnotically rhythmic and joy-infused music drew an estimated 400,000 fans from Morocco and across North Africa, Europe and North America to Essaouira (pronounced ess-ah-WEER-ah) last June for the five-day festival. Midsummer revelers heard more than 30 other jazz fusion, rock, reggae, African, Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and hip-hop acts from more than a dozen countries — as well as Hoba Hoba Spirit, a crowd-wowing multilingual “Moroc ’n roll!” band from Casablanca — performing on nine festival stages scattered in and around Essaouira’s walled, maze-like medina.

Unlike festivals staged, à la Woodstock, in muddy, middle-of-nowhere pastures, or worse, in vast, overheated football stadiums, the Gnawa’s setting, in a small, friendly and almost impossibly picturesque, wind-cooled seaside city, is as magical and mesmerizing as the music.

“I thought about going to Glastonbury,” Mr. Corbett said of the popular rock festival outside London that was being muddied by cold, drenching rains as he spoke. A sharp-featured, good-humored fellow, my new-found friend was ensconced on the roof terrace at Taros, a watering hole popular among tourists and expatriates, as well as a surprising number of Moroccans who felt unconstrained by Islam’s admonitions against alcohol. “Why see a bunch of boring new rock bands when you can see amazing ancient ones?” he said.

He made a sweeping gesture that took in the stars, the moon, the walls of the ramparts silhouetted against the sky and the gleaming superstructure of the main festival stage below on the Place Moulay Hassan, Essaouira’s central square. “And in a setting like this?”

We were both still buzzing after catching an 11 p.m. concert by a Gnawa group led by the maalem (master musician) Abdenbi El Gadari, on a small festival stage in the Marché aux Grains (Grain Market), a square enclosed by colonnaded arches where, until little more than 100 years ago, slaves were bought and sold at auction.

A descendant, like almost all Gnawa musicians, of black African slaves who for centuries were brought across the Sahara to serve the sultans, pashas and wealthy families of Morocco, Mr. Gadari sat on a floor cushion at the center of a stage covered with lush, colorfully patterned Moroccan carpets. Arrayed around him were more than a dozen members of his musical brotherhood: drummers, steel castanet players, dancers and singers who wore ankle-length white satin robes and tasseled fezzes beaded with white seashells.

With the commanding presence of the American Delta bluesmen with whom he shares musical roots and mojo, the maalem thrummed and plucked bluesy figures on his guimbri — a three-string lute, much like a bass guitar — and sang a gospely call and response in a rich baritone.

The music built slowly to an exhilarating crescendo of intricate rhythms and cross rhythms created by propulsive beating on hand-held drums and large, tambourinelike bendirs, staccato hand claps and the incessant, syncopated clack and clatter of the steel castanets. As the spirit moved them, musicians put down their instruments and stepped to the front of the stage to dance, displaying footwork and moves that resembled those of their African-American cousins, from the Temptations’ stylized line steps and James Brown’s knee drops to hip-hop’s exaggerated lopping turns, as well as whirls, leaps, back flips and hussar-like two-legged kicks that defied choreographic categorization, not to mention gravity.

Like all Gnawa brotherhoods, Mr. Gadari’s group performed music that for centuries was played only in secret spirit-possession and healing ceremonies called lilas that have evolved from ancient African animistic and Islamic Sufi rituals. The brotherhoods continue to perform in such religious rites — though only in strictly private gatherings — in which conjured healing spirits are said “to mount” the possessed, who whirl and writhe in ecstatic trance, during which they often cut or flail themselves with ceremonial daggers or iron batons.

“To me, these spectacles are filled with great beauty,” Paul Bowles, the expatriate American composer and writer who spent much of his life in Morocco, wrote of often bloody ceremonies that most Westerners would find gruesome to behold, “because their obvious purpose is to prove the power of the spirit over the flesh.”

“YOU’RE American?” the unsmiling young Moroccan manning a closet-size shop in the Spices Souk demanded. I balked, wondering if it would be wise to say I was Canadian, as advised in a post on a travel blog by a countryman concerned, as I was, about anti-American sentiment stirred by the war in Iraq, 3,000 miles east.

Though not an Arab country, Morocco is a Muslim nation with a diverse population and a long history of tolerance and openness to the West. It is a monarchy, and its present king, the 44-year-old Mohammed VI, has liberalized many of his long-ruling father’s more repressive policies. A far less severe form of Islam is practiced there than in more conservative and puritanical Muslim countries, where an event like the Gnawa Festival — with music fans, foreigners and Moroccans alike, dancing and singing in the streets and where women wear whatever they want — would be unheard of, if not illegal.

But there were bombings in Casablanca in 2003 and 2007, and the State Department’s warning in its information about traveling to Morocco that “the potential for terrorist violence against American interests and citizens remains high” gave me pause.

But my anxieties evaporated as soon as I arrived in Marrakesh, where the cab ride from the airport to my hotel in the center of the red-hued medieval city was a senses-jolting experience. Minicabs and motorbikes sped through ancient streets filled with horse-drawn carts, donkeys laden with bulging sacks and pedestrians dressed as though they’d been plucked from the streets of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

The next day, after a two-and-a-half-hour cab drive west through forbidding desert landscapes where funnel clouds of brown dust rose in the distance and a goatherd sought refuge from the blistering sun in the nearly nonexistent shade of a lone and scrawny tree, I arrived in Essaouira. Its sprawl of white homes and apartment buildings was spread along low hills overlooking a broad, blue bay and the tall, sand-colored walls that enclosed the medina, the heart of the old city.

“You will love Essaouira,” a young Moroccan woman who is studying architecture in Florida assured me before I left. “It’s magical.”

I understood what she meant after a single afternoon and evening walking around the medina, with its dramatic, castlelike battlements where ramparts bristle with cannons pointing out to sea, its dark, serpentine alleyways, hidden courtyards, graceful archways and sunny, colonnaded squares and its souks selling spices, oils, aphrodisiacs and the makings of potions said to cast spells.

At first glance a bewildering maze of circuitous, tunnel-like side streets, the medina, commissioned by an 18th-century sultan and designed, by a French architect, Theodore Cornut, with two wide boulevards as central axes and thoroughfares linking three main gates, soon proved easily navigable.

From the humanlike cries of gulls reeling in the cloudless skies and the cooling Atlantic trade winds whistling through the streets and rustling the crowns of the ancient palms, to the staccato chatter of street musicians’ steel castanets and the muezzin’s musical, mystical call to evening prayers, the city was alive with sound even when the festival stages stood silent.

After an hour of aimless wandering, I found myself in the Spices Souk, where the young merchant demanded to know if I was an American.

“Yes,” I finally replied. “I’m from New York.”

“You came all this way to visit my country?” the man exclaimed. With that, he poured heaping tablespoons of powdered saffron into a plastic bag and handed it to me.

“This is a gift — for America,” he said with a smile. “Here. Take it. And now come in for a glass of tea.”

“I was 19 and a hippie among thousands of them who came to Morocco in those days,” Loy Ehrlich, a French guitarist who is an artistic director of the Gnawa Festival, recalled of his first pilgrimage to Essaouira in 1971.

Then an out-of-the-way, off-the-tourist-map town with no rail or regular bus service, no good roads to accommodate it if there were and only a handful of hotels, Essaouira, formerly known by its Portuguese name, Mogador, was beloved by Moroccans for its beauty, its near-perfect climate — even in the depths of the African summer when the interior swelters, ocean breezes sweep clouds from the sky and keep the so-called Windy City pleasant in the day and cool at night — and its friendly inhabitants. (“Essaouira people always smile,” said a Gnawa fan from Fez).

Artists like Bowles, who visited in 1959 while recording Gnawa music for the Library of Congress, and Orson Welles, who spent nearly two years there off and on in the late 1940s and early 50s filming “Othello,” using the city’s ramparts, hammams and arched gateways as a fitting North African backdrop for the tragedy of the Moor, were also charmed by the city’s beauty.

But it was a sojourn by Jimi Hendrix, the guitar idol who vacationed in Essaouira in 1969, a year before his death, that inspired visits by Mr. Ehrlich and countless other musicians and fans, many of whom believe that Hendrix’s song “Castles Made of Sand” was inspired by Borj El Baroud, the ghostly, turreted remains of a Portuguese fort decomposing off the beach south of the city. Like most of the legends surrounding Hendrix’s brief visit, when he supposedly spent weeks jamming with local musicians and fathering children among his many lovers, the story is a pipe dream. Hendrix, who arrived without a guitar and spent a single night or two in the Hôtel d’Îles with his girlfriend, recorded the song two years before he arrived in Morocco.

It was Hendrix’s star that Mr. Ehrlich followed to Essaouira. But it was Gnawa music that transfixed him when he arrived. Terminus of the ancient desert trade routes to Timbuktu and sub-Saharan Africa, where the Gnawas’ enslaved ancestors had their origins, Essaouira remains home to the largest concentration of the musical brotherhoods in Morocco.

“When I first heard Gnawa, it was like a discovery, like something was revealed to me,” Mr. Ehrlich said. “I felt the power of the music and its connection to the blues. The Africans who were brought to America created the blues; those sent to Morocco created Gnawa. It was like two worlds mixing — the African and rock ’n’ roll.”

Performing on the third night of the festival with a group formed for the occasion in homage to Hendrix, Mr. Ehrlich led the Band of Gnawa (after Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys), a cross-cultural mix of musicians playing electric guitars, guimbri, bendirs, electric keyboards and castanets, through renditions of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” (with a maalem in emerald satin channeling Jimmy Page on his guimbri), as well as Hendrix’s “Stone Free” and, yes, “Castles Made of Sand.”

“In a crazy world where rich and poor, black and white, Christian and Islam are divided,” Mr. Ehrlich said, “musicians try to create something to unite the world.”

In keeping with that creed, he rewrote the refrain of a familiar Beatles singalong. “Come together, right now,” the vast crowd gathered on Place Moulay Hassan sang along with Mr. Ehrlich’s Band of Gnawa, “Essa-Weer-Ah!”

“IT’S positively biblical,” Bill Corbett marveled on the last day of the music festival as he sat in the shade of a tree outside L’Horloge, a popular cafe on a side street near a graceful clock tower. “Everywhere you look you see Marys and Josephs and wise men.”

He was watching the passing scene of colorfully turbaned men in ankle-length tunics, caftans and djellabas; brightly robed women, some in burqas and niqabs, some veiled and others with their hair wrapped in elaborately rolled silk head scarves (hijabs). Mr. Corbett, who arrived from England wearing a T-shirt and cutoffs, now looked quite New Testament himself in a long, white hooded djellaba, a knitted skullcap and sandals.

Besotted by Essaouira’s beauty, he would extend his stay for a week after the festival ended, fall in love with a Muslim woman and return a month later to court her and to explore the possibilities of starting a business exporting Essaouiran argan oil to Britain.

“I came for the music,” he said, “and found the magic.”

A WORLD OF MUSIC, AND A BEACH

The 11th edition of the Gnawa Festival (www.festival-gnaoua.net) will take place June 26 to 29. Admission to performances on outdoor festival stages in and around the medina is free.

Visas are not required for Americans traveling to Morocco, but visitors are advised to check the State Department international travel information online at travel.state.gov for up-to-date security information.

While almost all Moroccans speak French, many also speak English.

Essaouira is a small city with limited hotel accommodations; unless you are willing to barter with residents for spare bedrooms or sofa space or to sleep on the beach, be sure to book early. Most accommodations are sold out well before the festival begins, but you’re bound to see dozens of men and boys shake key rings at passing cars as they come into town, a signal that they have rooms to rent.

Because Islam takes a dim view of alcohol, it is kept out of sight, served only in hotels and restaurants that cater mostly to tourists, and never in sidewalk cafes or restaurants. Brown-bagging is almost unheard of and no beer, wine or liquor is sold at festival concessions, with the happy result that the high spirits of Gnawa are generated by the music and not the bottle.

Even so, the large festival crowds coursing through the narrow streets of a city with chronic poverty and unemployment attract pickpockets and drug dealers among other petty criminals.

GETTING THERE

Royal Air Maroc (www.royalairmaroc.com) flies from Kennedy Airport to Marrakesh through Casablanca. Fares for the festival week start around $1,450 round trip.

Essaouira is a three-hour bus ride from the Marrakesh rail station on the Supratours (www.supratours.ma) express bus. At festival time the fare is 65 dirhams, about $8.65 at 7.5 dirhams to the dollar; no reservations are taken. Taxis from the Supratours bus terminal usually make the drive in less than three hours for the equivalent of about $50.

At Bab Marrakesh, the main gate to the medina, porters will load your bags into pushcarts and guide you to your hotel in the medina for 40 dirhams.

WHERE TO STAY

The chief attractions at La Casa Del Mar (35, rue D’Oujda; 212-68-94-38-39; www.casadelmar-essaouira.com) are dramatic views from the whitewashed roof terrace of sunsets and offshore rock outcroppings. While clean and affordable (doubles in high season start at 750 dirhams), this small bed-and-breakfast is in a sector of the medina behind the crumbling north ramparts, where visitors should be cautious after dark.

The Palais L’Heure Bleu (2, rue Ibn Batouta; 212-24-78-34-34; www.heure-bleue.com) offers spacious, sumptuously appointed rooms, fine courtyard dining (prix-fixe dinner is 60 euros) and a rooftop swimming pool, as well as a hamman, Morocco’s version of a Turkish steam bath. Doubles from 300 to 540 euros.

With its stone archways, lush courtyard and wrought-iron balconies, the Riad Al Madina (9, rue Attarine; 212-24-47-59-07; www.riadalmadina.com ) looks like a colonial-era haven that might have inspired Graham Greene. Doubles are 814 dirhams.

Riad le Grand Large (2, rue Oum-Rabia; 212-44-47-28-66; www.riadlegrandlarge.com) is, despite its name (the big big?), a small hotel with friendly management and quiet, simply furnished rooms. Doubles from 550 dirhams, with breakfast.

Villa Maroc (10, rue Abdellah Ben Yassin; 212-24-47-31-47; www.villa-maroc.com) features simply furnished but charming rooms with wood-beam ceilings, common rooms with fireplaces and a roof terrace overlooking one of the main Gnawa Festival stages on Place Moulay Hassan. Doubles from 950 dirhams.

WHERE TO EAT

Le Mogadorien (7, place Chefchaoni; 212-24-47-49-50; www.lemogadorien.c.la) is an inviting, well-lighted grotto of graceful archways and comfortable dining alcoves serving traditional fare, including excellent tagines, fish soups and colorful salades Morrocaine. The three-course menu is 175 dirhams. Alcohol is not served.

Taros Cafe (2, rue de la Skala at Place Moulay Hassan; 212-24-47-64-07; www.taroscafe.com) is housed in a restored mansion, complete with a dark-wood library-cum-dining room. It is better known for its music than its food ( I had soggy prawns, an O.K. Moroccan salad and crème brûlée); meals cost 250 to 300 dirhams. On the rooftop terrace, rocking American music by bands and D.J.s helps make this perhaps the most popular bar in town.

Dar Loubane (24, rue de Rif, off Place Chefchaoni; 212-24-47-62-96) offers wonderful beef curries (95 dirhams), fish tagines (115 dirhams) and Moroccan salads (42 dirhams) in an eccentric setting: the courtyard of an 18th-century mansion filled with kitschy, eye-bending artwork. Much of it was collected in the flea markets of Paris by the Casablanca-born proprietor, Jean-Claude Dulac, gregarious host to lively gatherings of the young and hip, locals and tourists alike.

Cafe L’Horloge (Place Chefchaoni; no phone) provides a shady refuge from the heat and tumult of the medina. The service is friendly, if not exactly like clockwork; a cheese omelet and sweet mint tea set me back all of 25 dirhams.

Snak La Mouette (110, rue Mohamed Ben Abdellah; no phone), one of countless storefront snack shops in the medina, was a favorite of locals and festivalgoers, many of whom lined up at 2 a.m. for delectable post-concert chicken and pepper sauce baguettes (35 dirhams).

STEVE DOUGHERTY has written extensively on popular music, including an article on Bob Dylan’s Minnesota for the Travel section.

Shiko Mawatu Using Music to Help Heal the Congo

News & Notes , April 8, 2008 - Music sustained him as his nation went through war. Now, musician Shiko Mawatu is hoping his own songs can help rebuild the Democratic Republic of Congo. He talks with Farai Chideya about his efforts and new CD, Kimbanda Nzila. NPR has the audio.

Honking Horns Transformed: Ghana's Por Por Music

NPR
[go to NPR for audio and video]

Honking Horns Transformed: Ghana's Por Por Music
All Things Considered, March 26, 2007 - A union of truck and taxi drivers in Ghana's capital, Accra, has turned the mundane honking of horns into music.

Steven Feld, a professor at the University of New Mexico and self-described "anthropologist of sound," has spent three years recording the sound of these horns, known in the West African nation as por por horns after the sound they make.

Antiques from the 1930s and '40s, the honk horns have a rubber squeeze bulb at one end and are either straight or curved. Drivers used to hang them off their side mirrors.

Feld has produced a CD of the music, Por Por: Honk Horn Music of Ghana, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Ghana's independence earlier this month. The CD features the unique combination of drums, singing, bells and squeeze-bulb horns.

The music originated for very practical reasons, Feld tells Melissa Block.

Punctured tires were common on Ghanaian roads in the past. At night, as they pumped air back into their tires, the drivers — fearful of animals that might lurk in the darkness — also banged on tire rims with wrenches and honked their horns "like crazy" to scare any potential predators away.

"And then somebody got the idea to start taking bell rhythms and horn rhythms from different kinds of music in the country, and transposing them onto the horns and the tire rims, and that was the birth of the music," Feld says.

Although por por originated 60 years ago, Feld says it has been largely unknown until recently because it is performed only at the funerals of truck drivers.

"The idea is kind of like a New Orleans jazz funeral: a real rejoice-when-you-die kind of party, where you are sent up by a honking of horns," explains Feld. "The drivers' road to heaven paved with car horns and a whole lot of honking."

In Zimbabwe, dissent wears the mask of theater

In Zimbabwe, dissent wears the mask of theater

In Zimbabwe, dissent wears the mask of theater
A rich culture of protest theater flourishes in the country, despite the constant risk of censorship or arrest from President Mugabe's regime.
By Robyn Dixon
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

9:08 PM PST, November 18, 2007

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — The stage was a small room in the Harare Central Police Station. The audience, about 20 bored policemen and plainclothes intelligence officers.

The two actors were shaking, not with stage fright but the real thing. Anthony Tongani stammered and forgot his lines. Silvanos Mudzvova was so afraid that he didn't dare make a mistake.

They stumbled to the end. Then they were ordered to start again.

And again.

They performed their political satire, "The Final Push," 12 times in two days at the station, while police and officers from the feared Central Intelligence Organization argued over what charges to press against the actors and fired questions about who had funded the show.

"The first time, the officer in charge was not there. When he came, he demanded his own performance. Then the superintendent came, and he demanded his own performance," Mudzvova said. "It got worse when the CIO came in. One of them was actually sleeping during the performance. Then he'd wake up and say, 'Are you through?' "

A rich culture of protest theater has sprung up in Zimbabwe, but artists are under increasing pressure from President Robert Mugabe's security forces as he crushes dissent. In recent years, most independent newspapers have been shut down, opposition parties have been infiltrated by CIO spies, and activists have been arrested, beaten and sometimes killed. The 2002 Public Order and Security Act bans political meetings of more than two people without police permission, outlaws statements that incite "public disorder" and makes it an offense to insult the president.

Mudzvova and Tongani were arrested at the premiere of "The Final Push" in late September. Tongani was arrested before he could take his final bow, and Mudzvova immediately after taking his.

The play, written by Mudzvova, is about the chairman of a building called Liberty House (a thinly disguised Mugabe) and his political challenger (presumed to be opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai) trapped together in an elevator during a power failure. At one point, the two duke it out in a boxing match.

In Zimbabwe's repressive climate, artists and actors find creative ways to protest. People crowd into clubs to drink beer and laugh at stand-up comedy poking fun at Zimbabwe's problems. They turn out for the opening nights of political plays, even though police often raid theaters and close productions before the first lines are spoken.

Zimbabwe's underground arts culture is thriving, taking hard-hitting political messages to the masses in the crowded black townships, the engines of their cars running in case they need to make a quick escape from the authorities. Filmmakers recently secretly shot an underground movie based on a banned political play in Harare, the capital.

The two nights Mudzvova and Tongani spent in custody had elements of the kind of surreal political play in which they might perform. Police laughed in all the right places, especially when the chairman gets knocked out by his opponent. But the CIO men were outraged.

"The CIO guys tried to convince the police that we were actually talking about the president being knocked down," Mudzvova recounted in an interview the day after his release. "But the police did not see it in that way. To them it was just a simple, straightforward story.

"The police did not know what to do with us. But the CIO kept insisting that we be charged. The question was, with what?"

In the end, Mudzvova and Tongani were charged with inciting the masses to revolt, a statute that carries a 20-year penalty. Twice, police modified the charges, first to criminal nuisance, and then breach of the censorship laws.

Mudzvova says that with media freedom hobbled, it is up to artists to take a message of protest to Zimbabweans.

"Artists, like everybody else, fear for their lives. But the moment you have that fear, you won't get anywhere. People are saying, 'If you guys have that fear, where are we going to get the correct information from?' "

The night after their release, the two men were back onstage in the small circular Theatre in the Park, modeled on an African hut, in Harare. But they modified the script to satisfy the CIO: The knockout in the boxing scene was gone. A day later, after debate with colleagues and actors, they restored the scene, without drawing further visits from the police.

An unlikely career

Bulawayo-based satirist Cont Mhlanga grew up in a village with no theatrical tradition. His father expected him to be a farmer. Mhlanga didn't intend to become an actor, because he didn't even know what it was.

Even today in Zimbabwe, the idea of a career in the theater is unthinkable for most people. It is seen as a last resort for beggars and failures, people incapable of producing something real to eat or sell.

He was introduced to theater by accident when a group wanted to hold a drama workshop in the hall where Mhlanga practiced karate. "I said, 'What is theater?' " But he joined in, got hooked and has been writing political satire since Zimbabwe won independence from Britain in 1980.

Stepping into Mhlanga's cluttered Bulawayo office is like visiting the inside of an inspired but chaotic mind, crammed with yard-high stacks of books, yellowing newspapers and scripts, drafts of his latest protest letter to the government, and pieces of old broken, unidentifiable equipment, with a sleek laptop basking happily in the middle of it all.

Wiry, with piercing eyes, he speaks in a tumble of words. He does not look old but declines to give his age, shrugging scornfully at the question.

"Everyone around here calls me Grandfather," he says dryly.

His plays are so bluntly political that he and his actors frequently get into trouble.

In May, the officer-in-charge at Bulawayo Central Police Station went through Mhlanga's play about AIDS, "Everyday Soldier," deleting lines with a red pen, offended because one character disappears as part of the plot.

"He said, 'You can't have this because you are implying that people disappear in Zimbabwe.' I said, 'I'm not going to remove the lines. It will play as it is.' He said, 'It will not play as it is. I'll close it down.' "

He did prevent public presentation of the play but Mhlanga found a way around it: "We started to run the play for closed audiences. We just make sure there are no police in the audience."

Mhlanga's latest play, "The Good President," inspired by beatings and arrests of opposition members in March, was shut down on opening night in June, and riot police surrounded the theater for a week to prevent the actors from staging the play.

To evade arrest or censorship, artists run underground projects. Mhlanga invented what he calls Invisible Theater in bars, trains and the commuter minibuses called taxis.

In Invisible Theater, several actors plant themselves in a group and improvise a conversation.

"People don't know they're actors. The dialogue might be: 'This government is terrible. Look at those kids in the street. They should be in school but they're carrying water.' Then another actor will say, 'Don't start with that. You'll get us all beaten. There are CIO guys everywhere.' Then a third actor will say, 'The way we're living in this country is more than a beating.'

"Then other people will join in," he said, referring to the unsuspecting people around them. "The actors will keep directing the conversation, and the moment they think they've made a point, they will get off the taxi and get onto another one.

"The thing we are challenging is fear, because we know that people are afraid of discussing these things in public."

'Hit-and-run' shows

In Harare, a theater organization named Savanna Trust does "hit-and-run" street performances in volatile areas such as Mashonaland West, where actors risk arrest by police or violence from ruling party thugs.

They're designed to reach people in poor, crowded neighborhoods who otherwise would never see theater. The performance must be quick, sharp and funny, and the actors ready for a quick getaway.

"When you do hit-and-run theater, you beat drums and the people gather. You have a car there with the motor running," Mudzvova said. "Your heart is beating very fast. You are full of fear that you are going to be arrested at any minute. You know the exact message that you want to give. You make sure the people get the message in the shortest time. As soon as you see that people are getting the message, you disappear.

"Afterwards the actors go, 'Phew! That was extreme!'

"We escaped by a whisker in Bindura," he said, referring to a stronghold of the ruling party. "We only escaped because the car we had was far more powerful than the car the police had."

Mudzvova is not the only one producing controversial material. The low-budget underground film "Super Patriots and Morons," produced by British-trained Zimbabwean actor Daves Guzha, was filmed secretly over nine days in Harare. It includes real scenes of Harare street life, bread queues and crushing poverty.

Filming without permission is banned in Zimbabwe, and the filmmakers, questioned by police while they were working, were lucky to escape arrest.

The film's portrait of an isolated, paranoid president haunted by dreams of a bloody hangman's rope is unlikely to hit cinema screens in Zimbabwe. The best its makers can hope for is mass production of DVDs that could be distributed free. But there is no money for that, so the film's future is unclear.

The director, Tawanda Gunda Mumpengo, is critical of what he sees as self-censorship by artists terrified of arrest and violence.

"It's up to us as citizens of this country to demand our freedoms if we feel they are being curtailed and to assert ourselves," he said, "because no one will do it for us."

In his jumbled office, Mhlanga gestured at the mountains of papers around him, the fruit of 27 years of labor. "No one will shut me up," he said. "There's only one option to shut me up and that's to kill me. But they can't kill what I stand for."