The next series of 'video' montage postings will be dealing with a single song, which I've translated as Fishing for Our Lord. This is a rare treat because I shan't be putting up every Salia Koroma song in its entirety given the length of most of the ballads. With this particular song, I've chosen to edit it into about five sections. This first part deals with the prelude and a third of the quest for the njagbo. Be on the lookout for the other parts.
On the surface, it's a rather monotonous song with its refrain: "I didn't see any njagbo there," or "It didn't have any njagbo attached." Salia himself may have realised this, for in this 1980 version he chose to preface the song (in Krio), essentially telling the casual non-Mende listener that he's dealing with many things and not just repeating a line over and again. (I edited out that spoken preface here.) It's a very complex song thematically. In my next few postings I shall be discussing the song.
*** For the time being, pay attention to the lines about him not wanting to be any one's slave companion had he lived in the days when the old Mende wars raged. Note the hypothetical case. Some lines later when Salia ups and sets out fishing, the language changes in a very subtle way. He's no longer supposing; he's there; the conditionality of the earlier language is gone. What we see is that the first scenario (old wars/slavery days) is a poetic device, a peg on which he's going to hang many themes and explore them systematically. Note also the anachronisms. In the olden days there'd have been no airplanes, no electricity and things like that. But as I said, it's a poetic device, a clever way to treat disparate themes.
Once again, you very Happy Few, enjoy!
Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com
Showing posts with label sierra leone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sierra leone. Show all posts
April 20, 2009
April 11, 2009
The Gramophone
I don't quite remember how we discovered it, my brother and I. Did we find it after we saw him or before we saw him? I'm not even sure I saw him, a child's memory can be so unreliable; and yet I think we saw him. I recall the crowd that suddenly filled one of our neighbours' front veranda, the orangey wash of the street light from the pole close by casting shadows everywhere. Night had just fallen and all the boys hadn't made their ways home yet from the football games for a wash. We were small and we had to find our way through the bigger bodies. Even for the games, we were mostly ball fetchers when the older boys were playing, or they'd ask you to play some "borbor-pain" role as their goalie. The hotness of the day that had just closed still sat on almost everyone, giving the veranda a more packed feeling than it really had. The adults were shouting at us to get out. Somehow, someone had spotted him on Tikonko Road and before he could sneak away that person had cried: "Salia Koroma's here!" They'd corralled him over, a crowd had gathered, and there he was. He had his instrument. But he didn't play. He didn't play for just any Joe Vamboi, Joe Vandi and Joe Vivii. But who cared?
But then I may be imagining that first encounter. I doubt it, though.
It was probably after that encounter that we discovered the gramophone. We'd climbed up into the rafters and seen it. From all the dust that was covering it, it was hard to say it was black. Well, it wasn't easy getting the dust off it; we never did get it off, as a matter of fact. (How can one talk matter-of-factly in such a case? You tell me.) The black cloth covering was peeling off and it was showing one dovetailed corner of the wooden frame in which the mechanism sat. Standing beside it was a Peak milk carton box with a stack of records in it, some bigger than others. How could we tell between 45s and 78s? That they were big and small was enough for us. Most of them, if my memory serves me right, had yellow labels. Was it the gramophone that had the logo of the dog sitting in front of a megaphone? Probably the records. HMV, it said.
We figured out how to work it. But the sound was disappointing, like playing a record on dead batteries. After that discovery, we couldn't leave the thing alone. It was a toy.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave my gramophone alone."
That was Av...h, our paternal grandpa. For some reason, we never got round to calling our paternal grandparents "Mama, and Maada," what we should have been calling them in the first place, titles which we had no problem calling our mum's parents. We called them by their first names. Blame papa; he called them by their first names, the only child that he was, so we did likewise.
Whether Av...h never told his son, or papa never took the complaints seriously, we continued to climb up into the rafters. It was quite easy. We just brought a dinning chair close to one of the windows, put a bench on top, stood on the bench, got a toehold on the sill and then in the strong wire mesh on the window, and, there you are! We never got a complete play from any record, as we always managed to under-crank the gramophone.
One day we were determined to get a full play and we duly set at getting our goal. The crank handle went slack, followed by a long sound of unwinding mechanism and a 'boing!' Yes, complete with an exclamation mark, take my word for it. That was the end of the gramophone. The records, mostly Salia recordings, were next to suffer from our mischief. They were gathering dust. We were then listening to Ochestre Muye and Sabannoh 75 records that were played for us children to dance to on some evenings. Ochestre Muye, Sabannoh 75 and others, with their Congolese-inflected music played on a modern electric record-changer, had consigned my grandfather's ancient gramophone to oblivion and the abuse of children. It was as if Salia were too ancient for anything new and fancy. So the Salia records became our Frisbee, with the result that you can well imagine.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave that gramophone alone." I know very well about the gramophone, but I never left those records alone, it would appear.
But then I may be imagining that first encounter. I doubt it, though.
It was probably after that encounter that we discovered the gramophone. We'd climbed up into the rafters and seen it. From all the dust that was covering it, it was hard to say it was black. Well, it wasn't easy getting the dust off it; we never did get it off, as a matter of fact. (How can one talk matter-of-factly in such a case? You tell me.) The black cloth covering was peeling off and it was showing one dovetailed corner of the wooden frame in which the mechanism sat. Standing beside it was a Peak milk carton box with a stack of records in it, some bigger than others. How could we tell between 45s and 78s? That they were big and small was enough for us. Most of them, if my memory serves me right, had yellow labels. Was it the gramophone that had the logo of the dog sitting in front of a megaphone? Probably the records. HMV, it said.
We figured out how to work it. But the sound was disappointing, like playing a record on dead batteries. After that discovery, we couldn't leave the thing alone. It was a toy.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave my gramophone alone."
That was Av...h, our paternal grandpa. For some reason, we never got round to calling our paternal grandparents "Mama, and Maada," what we should have been calling them in the first place, titles which we had no problem calling our mum's parents. We called them by their first names. Blame papa; he called them by their first names, the only child that he was, so we did likewise.
Whether Av...h never told his son, or papa never took the complaints seriously, we continued to climb up into the rafters. It was quite easy. We just brought a dinning chair close to one of the windows, put a bench on top, stood on the bench, got a toehold on the sill and then in the strong wire mesh on the window, and, there you are! We never got a complete play from any record, as we always managed to under-crank the gramophone.
One day we were determined to get a full play and we duly set at getting our goal. The crank handle went slack, followed by a long sound of unwinding mechanism and a 'boing!' Yes, complete with an exclamation mark, take my word for it. That was the end of the gramophone. The records, mostly Salia recordings, were next to suffer from our mischief. They were gathering dust. We were then listening to Ochestre Muye and Sabannoh 75 records that were played for us children to dance to on some evenings. Ochestre Muye, Sabannoh 75 and others, with their Congolese-inflected music played on a modern electric record-changer, had consigned my grandfather's ancient gramophone to oblivion and the abuse of children. It was as if Salia were too ancient for anything new and fancy. So the Salia records became our Frisbee, with the result that you can well imagine.
"When your papa comes, I'll tell him you won't leave that gramophone alone." I know very well about the gramophone, but I never left those records alone, it would appear.
April 05, 2009
"As we went Vonjo wept..."
1- On the way, Vonjo was crying. Musu Tolleh was crying.**
I said:
Musu, why're you crying? Indeed you've done a foolish thing.
If the hat on the head complains about foetid air,
What's the loincloth hanging around the hole to say?
...the trouble you've started isn't likely to bring you down."
As we went Vonjo wept. I said:
"Don't cry my Father.
Don't you know that with a valiant warrior in your camp you go to war without fear, Vonjo?
I'm here behind you.
There's no rock in Mendeland to sink a great man.
Don't fear!
The minnow-fish won't spawn a degbe;
So a poor man won't sire a prince.
The baboon isn't just any other animal;
Oh! A bush cow doesn't bolt down a hole at all."
(-Gangu Vonjo)
2- The wind that'll blow tomorrow is in the heavens
but it won't blow before its time;
Tomorrow's light is in the heavens
but it won't shine just yet;
Tomorrow's wind is in the heavens
but it won't blow on anyone before its time.
(-Seigbema)
3- "As God's my witness," a trapper scolds his son
"Since I gave birth to you you've refused to work for me. See the rope I'm making.
Who would you have to fight over it when I'm gone?"
-All that comes from poverty. Not so my people?
"The mature raffia-palm on the edge of the swamp-
When I clean it and tap it and I die
You and who will own it?"
-All that comes from poverty. Not so my people?
"See the weir on the stream over there?
When I shore it up with fresh palm branches and I die
You and who will own it?"
-All that comes from poverty. Not so my people?
(-Kabaima)
** Vonjo (Nyagua III) has been summoned to appear before the District Commissioner in Kenema. He and his retinue of courtiers, wives and musicians are been transported under military escort. Vonjo is probably thinking that the first Nyagua's fate is going to befall him. Salia tries to lift his spirits here.
April 02, 2009
A Man, an Axe, a Forest
"Man's debt to man will be forever in arrears," so wrote the New York Times literary critic William Du Bois in his 1948 review of Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. Our debt to the artists that we love will be always in default, it would appear then. The artists- singers, novelists, sculptors, painters, and poets- that we love, how do we apprehend them? (And I'm playing on both senses of the word.) How do we understand and appreciate them? How do we capture their essence and a sense of whatever message they may be trying to pass on? How do we repay them?
For my part, we can only start to do something close to settling the account by a constant quest of the essence that they have, a regular, insistent questioning of what these artists present to us. Then and only then do we begin the process of apprehending. But there's a fugitive aspect to the whole enterprise. For just when we believe we have them cornered and bagged, they escape our grasp and blend in with the forest and a mocking tail beckons us still. Perhaps that's why we love these artists, because they're so elusive. Sometimes we're tempted to take the easy way out. They cease to be a quarry; instead we see them as the forest that gives them shelter. We're stumped by the opacity of that mass of trees. We take an axe to the forest presented before us and we start hacking at the towering trees, thinking that this way we'll finally bring light to the dark undergrowth. "You don't hand a man an axe in a forest earmarked for farming," so said Salia.
What if we tap around, in the dark, patiently trying to find our way into the light?
But isn't that what they do as well, these artists that we frequent? They're questioning. Always questioning. They repeat themselves in ingenious ways, hoping that taking a new direction would lead somewhere truthful and full of light and understanding. So I'll come back to Salia Koroma, constantly, always questioning; not with an axe in the forest that he presents. With him I'll be able to identify, even in my blind ignorance, a little bit of the Sierra Leonean landscape that he presents: a bamboo grove over a clear-running stream; a kolanut tree, an orange grove, an overgrown whetting/foundation stone, the remains of a round-house with its thatched roof caved in and overgrown, a termite-eaten mortar and pestle lying in the reclaiming forest, all a palimpsest of a once thriving village. With Salia as guide I'll come across the people that made up/that make up the Sierra Leonean landscape: the deceitful, the cunning, the cruel and power-drunk, the envious, the lustful, the ambitious poor, the section chief playing paramount chief, the jealous husband, the much put-upon junior wife in a polygamous household...
Salia Koroma is a discovery for me; or perhaps I should say rightly that he's a voyage of discovery. Discovery of new meanings. Discovery of new levels of meaning to what I think I already know. This is a an enterprise of appraisal. It's a not a homage. An homage would mean my eyes will be too close to the ground to appreciate, to see. An homage presupposes an awe-stricken attitude. No genuflections here, my brother. No alo akbas here, my sister.
For my part, we can only start to do something close to settling the account by a constant quest of the essence that they have, a regular, insistent questioning of what these artists present to us. Then and only then do we begin the process of apprehending. But there's a fugitive aspect to the whole enterprise. For just when we believe we have them cornered and bagged, they escape our grasp and blend in with the forest and a mocking tail beckons us still. Perhaps that's why we love these artists, because they're so elusive. Sometimes we're tempted to take the easy way out. They cease to be a quarry; instead we see them as the forest that gives them shelter. We're stumped by the opacity of that mass of trees. We take an axe to the forest presented before us and we start hacking at the towering trees, thinking that this way we'll finally bring light to the dark undergrowth. "You don't hand a man an axe in a forest earmarked for farming," so said Salia.
What if we tap around, in the dark, patiently trying to find our way into the light?
But isn't that what they do as well, these artists that we frequent? They're questioning. Always questioning. They repeat themselves in ingenious ways, hoping that taking a new direction would lead somewhere truthful and full of light and understanding. So I'll come back to Salia Koroma, constantly, always questioning; not with an axe in the forest that he presents. With him I'll be able to identify, even in my blind ignorance, a little bit of the Sierra Leonean landscape that he presents: a bamboo grove over a clear-running stream; a kolanut tree, an orange grove, an overgrown whetting/foundation stone, the remains of a round-house with its thatched roof caved in and overgrown, a termite-eaten mortar and pestle lying in the reclaiming forest, all a palimpsest of a once thriving village. With Salia as guide I'll come across the people that made up/that make up the Sierra Leonean landscape: the deceitful, the cunning, the cruel and power-drunk, the envious, the lustful, the ambitious poor, the section chief playing paramount chief, the jealous husband, the much put-upon junior wife in a polygamous household...
Salia Koroma is a discovery for me; or perhaps I should say rightly that he's a voyage of discovery. Discovery of new meanings. Discovery of new levels of meaning to what I think I already know. This is a an enterprise of appraisal. It's a not a homage. An homage would mean my eyes will be too close to the ground to appreciate, to see. An homage presupposes an awe-stricken attitude. No genuflections here, my brother. No alo akbas here, my sister.
February 25, 2009
"What has the sinker seen in the pool?"
You're a conceited lot! Indeed. "What has the sinker seen in the pool that it keeps bobbing wildly on the water?" Of course that line is not in the song the prelude to which I posted ("Salia sings of..."). The line is from another song, and though the subject matters of the two songs are different, for me, at least, it distills the attitude of those who'd look down on people from the countryside. That line signifies a general restlessness and a lack of depth (pun intended) that characterise townies as shown in this Salia Koroma composition. What have they seen in the town, popping in and out but still clueless as to the real meaning of what's important? They'd make sweeping statements about what they have, what they know, about the backwardness of the country and country folk. Other than the spirit of contempt, what else animates these rootless people? Those are the central questions Salia seems to be asking 1940s Sierra Leone (Colony and Protectorate; Town and Country). And these questions are valid sixty years on.
The need to know, the urge to tell... It's the place of Salia Koroma, the singer/poet to tell us the truth. And it isn't Truth with a capital T. That sort of truth, not even the poet/singer possesses. What he can boast of knowing, our composer, are those little truths that accrue from a keen and patient observation, little insights beyond the reach of the restless and the vain. Insights that need to have resonated with the singer/poet first. Insights that are a sincere, truthful and eloquent rendering of the troubadour's personal emotions and experiences. Otherwise he won't be speaking to us, no matter how imaginatively he seeks to engage us.
For Salia, this personal and general awareness gleaned from observation finds its value and weight in the restatements of a line and variations of that line. This anaphoric use becomes more than a poetic device; thus we're given a gradual unearthing of truths that are no less wonderful than would've been a blinding revelation. These restatements seem to be saying: 'You don't know what you're saying; if you did, you'd have observed that...' But we don't always see (or we refuse to see most of the time), so the artiste finds himself as if condemned to repeat what should be clear for all to see:
A coat lined with buttons... You're a conceited lot! For vanity to trump yours, I give you nothing humbler than a raffia grub. The other day I saw you strutting in your 'one-'n-six' check shirt. Have you had a look at the guinea hen? And you call yourselves civilised because you've a soldier in his shiny black boots walking around with his chest in the air, looking fierce. It's my guess you haven't seen a bush cow. It wears boots too, and it's no less brutal than your fancy soldier. As for the hats worn by your colonial bosses, look around. See that anthill? Or the monkey in the tree? Your colonial master's given your police (askari, Swahili word) a uniform fit for a baboon. Why the swagger, then?
Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature! This is what Salia knows intimately. And there's an imperative for him to impart this knowledge. He has to say it; he has no control over that. Hasn't he told us that he's a vagabond precisely because of the ballad? He's a dove who settles in a tree to recount his stories and flies off at the end of the day, head pounding and stomach rumbling. He's a kingfisher always in flight. Ah, but how he knows his stuff! How he knows his stuff, this dove, this snail, this immoral woman, this kingfisher, this Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature!
Nya ngi Yohmie gohloh/Sia jemeko ndogboh goila, eh-
Siiki lomi/Ndomi bengoh jemie ma, eh!
(I know the Yohmie/As the kingfisher knows the bush-
The silk shirt/How that shirt becomes the kingfisher!)
The need to know, the urge to tell... It's the place of Salia Koroma, the singer/poet to tell us the truth. And it isn't Truth with a capital T. That sort of truth, not even the poet/singer possesses. What he can boast of knowing, our composer, are those little truths that accrue from a keen and patient observation, little insights beyond the reach of the restless and the vain. Insights that need to have resonated with the singer/poet first. Insights that are a sincere, truthful and eloquent rendering of the troubadour's personal emotions and experiences. Otherwise he won't be speaking to us, no matter how imaginatively he seeks to engage us.
For Salia, this personal and general awareness gleaned from observation finds its value and weight in the restatements of a line and variations of that line. This anaphoric use becomes more than a poetic device; thus we're given a gradual unearthing of truths that are no less wonderful than would've been a blinding revelation. These restatements seem to be saying: 'You don't know what you're saying; if you did, you'd have observed that...' But we don't always see (or we refuse to see most of the time), so the artiste finds himself as if condemned to repeat what should be clear for all to see:
-"You who said there're no riches in the bush..."
-"Friend, you act as if there're no riches in the bush..."
-"They act as if there're no riches in the bush..."
-"You lie when you say there're no riches in the bush..."
A coat lined with buttons... You're a conceited lot! For vanity to trump yours, I give you nothing humbler than a raffia grub. The other day I saw you strutting in your 'one-'n-six' check shirt. Have you had a look at the guinea hen? And you call yourselves civilised because you've a soldier in his shiny black boots walking around with his chest in the air, looking fierce. It's my guess you haven't seen a bush cow. It wears boots too, and it's no less brutal than your fancy soldier. As for the hats worn by your colonial bosses, look around. See that anthill? Or the monkey in the tree? Your colonial master's given your police (askari, Swahili word) a uniform fit for a baboon. Why the swagger, then?
Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature! This is what Salia knows intimately. And there's an imperative for him to impart this knowledge. He has to say it; he has no control over that. Hasn't he told us that he's a vagabond precisely because of the ballad? He's a dove who settles in a tree to recount his stories and flies off at the end of the day, head pounding and stomach rumbling. He's a kingfisher always in flight. Ah, but how he knows his stuff! How he knows his stuff, this dove, this snail, this immoral woman, this kingfisher, this Koroma Salia, this wonder of nature!
Nya ngi Yohmie gohloh/Sia jemeko ndogboh goila, eh-
Siiki lomi/Ndomi bengoh jemie ma, eh!
(I know the Yohmie/As the kingfisher knows the bush-
The silk shirt/How that shirt becomes the kingfisher!)
February 04, 2009
Salia Koroma Sings Of His Adventures
Here it is. Any commentary I shall be making on this 'video' montage will come in other posts. If you have something to say about the song, how you interpret it, from what angle you see it, feel free to express yourself. Note the colonial-era words like askari (which sounds like "asikai," in the usual way in which Mende assimilates foreign words by inserting vowels between consonant clusters). Note also the juxtaposing of everything new in the then-Protectorate and what had always existed- the land, its diversity, its creatures (even the most seemingly insignificant), its bounty. Keen observation meets a gifted lyricist's verve here.
Enjoy once more, you Happy Few!
Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com
Enjoy once more, you Happy Few!
Check it out on nikiibu.wordpress.com
January 30, 2009
Closing arguments?
Now to recap one or two points before I put up the 'video' montage of our next Salia song. I've argued that the song that was published in translation almost sixty-one years ago was sung by Salia.
Combine and recombine: Quite naturally, there're some differences between the translated published song and what I shall be putting up. But as I pointed out, that's hardly surprising with Salia. There's always some difference between various versions of Salia's songs. I have in my possession two versions of The Flight from the Wonde. One opens in Teyama (Taiama) and ends in Pewahun; the other version opens in Kono country, then goes through Mano Dasse, Teyama, and ends in Pewahun. I have three versions of Mende Gendei, and I'm sure there're more than three out there. This tells us that Salia, perhaps depending on circumstances such as who he was playing for, how tired he was, or how much of a hurry he was in to get to the next 'gig,' could lengthen or shorten his compositions, combine and recombine certain elements of his songs. But in the main, the song remains the same across versions.
Translations: And now I've to tackle the question of translation. Overall, it's unnecessary to argue whether Dr Little's translation was good or bad; we don't have the recording he did that day in 1947. Suffice to say, for me at least, it's good, the translation, I mean; and he thought a loose, or "free" translation would serve his purposes best. Anyone who's listened to Salia for a while, especially to that song, coming across Dr Little's translation would just straight away tell themselves- 'That's Salia, of course.' My translation has chosen to adhere as closely as possible to the patterns not only of the Mende language, but especially of Salia's lyrical use of the same. Salia always has a surprise in his usages, as if he's toying with your understanding of the various levels of meaning of a word or an expression. I've taken note of that. But as the saying goes, "the translator is a traitor." A 100% faithfulness is therefore out of the question. But Im pretty close, if I can say so myself! Let me know where and how you'd put it differently.
Editor's notes: In Little's article, one of the footnotes was at pains to point out the similarities between that Mende song and Giovanni Bocaccio's Decameron (1353), and Apuleius's The Golden Ass (2nd century AD), among others. But of course, all Salia's ballads are similar in "manner and incident" to the stories in The Decameron. As for Apuleius's novel, you'd have to listen to the ballad "Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow" to be actually blown away by Salia Koroma. When, in the future, I put up that song I shall try to draw the (very minor) similarities (and the great gap)between the story in The Golden Ass and the one in "Feh, Jinna Mangoe, feh!" (Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow.)
Combine and recombine: Quite naturally, there're some differences between the translated published song and what I shall be putting up. But as I pointed out, that's hardly surprising with Salia. There's always some difference between various versions of Salia's songs. I have in my possession two versions of The Flight from the Wonde. One opens in Teyama (Taiama) and ends in Pewahun; the other version opens in Kono country, then goes through Mano Dasse, Teyama, and ends in Pewahun. I have three versions of Mende Gendei, and I'm sure there're more than three out there. This tells us that Salia, perhaps depending on circumstances such as who he was playing for, how tired he was, or how much of a hurry he was in to get to the next 'gig,' could lengthen or shorten his compositions, combine and recombine certain elements of his songs. But in the main, the song remains the same across versions.
Translations: And now I've to tackle the question of translation. Overall, it's unnecessary to argue whether Dr Little's translation was good or bad; we don't have the recording he did that day in 1947. Suffice to say, for me at least, it's good, the translation, I mean; and he thought a loose, or "free" translation would serve his purposes best. Anyone who's listened to Salia for a while, especially to that song, coming across Dr Little's translation would just straight away tell themselves- 'That's Salia, of course.' My translation has chosen to adhere as closely as possible to the patterns not only of the Mende language, but especially of Salia's lyrical use of the same. Salia always has a surprise in his usages, as if he's toying with your understanding of the various levels of meaning of a word or an expression. I've taken note of that. But as the saying goes, "the translator is a traitor." A 100% faithfulness is therefore out of the question. But Im pretty close, if I can say so myself! Let me know where and how you'd put it differently.
Editor's notes: In Little's article, one of the footnotes was at pains to point out the similarities between that Mende song and Giovanni Bocaccio's Decameron (1353), and Apuleius's The Golden Ass (2nd century AD), among others. But of course, all Salia's ballads are similar in "manner and incident" to the stories in The Decameron. As for Apuleius's novel, you'd have to listen to the ballad "Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow" to be actually blown away by Salia Koroma. When, in the future, I put up that song I shall try to draw the (very minor) similarities (and the great gap)between the story in The Golden Ass and the one in "Feh, Jinna Mangoe, feh!" (Blow, Jinna Mangoe, blow.)
December 07, 2008
The New Masters of the Universe
It's always interesting to see the development of an artist's ideas over any length of time. With this new posting we get to see how one particular Salia Koroma theme evolved over the length of over forty years. In 'Ko Sao' Salia identified with the changes that his generation was going through. In 'Jia Yengele' (Walk softly) posted here the theme of change's treated a bit differently.
In the recording I'm posting here, the strutting younger man of yore is now a fuzzy memory, a memory rooted in the time he caroused with his patrons all over Mendeland. In 'Jia Yengele' the old man looks back at changes during his life. He reflects on the system of inverted values that have come to characterise society; it's a place he doesn't fully recognise; a place more restless than it had ever been. Here's a generation bereft of sound values, ignorant of its past, and fed on the pap that their story began with the hook-up with the desultory history of the Sierra Leone Colony. From a hierarchical, if stultifying, system in which everyone didn't always have their place in the sun, they'd been incorporated into a disorderly, even chaotic one. To this generation, Salia Koroma becomes a prophet, telling them to be careful for something comes. How could he have known that some five or so years after this recording, this chaos and tumult would turn into full-blown mayhem?
At the end of 'Ko Sao,' Salia Koroma used the metaphor of the fish basket stuck in a good fish hole (the accordion in the Bondo) and that of a strutting cockerel. No such arrogance now; and certainly no linguistic showing-off now. At the start and close of 'Jia Yengele' an old man calls for help. Given that those chiefly patrons who treated him as if he was royalty himself were now all dead, he turns to the new Masters of the Universe as we know them in Sierra Leone, those who're men enough to storm the House (of Parliament).
That, in itself, is an inversion of values, enough to make someone who'd hobnobbed with the samanga cry!
Jia Yengele from Nikiibu on Vimeo.
In the recording I'm posting here, the strutting younger man of yore is now a fuzzy memory, a memory rooted in the time he caroused with his patrons all over Mendeland. In 'Jia Yengele' the old man looks back at changes during his life. He reflects on the system of inverted values that have come to characterise society; it's a place he doesn't fully recognise; a place more restless than it had ever been. Here's a generation bereft of sound values, ignorant of its past, and fed on the pap that their story began with the hook-up with the desultory history of the Sierra Leone Colony. From a hierarchical, if stultifying, system in which everyone didn't always have their place in the sun, they'd been incorporated into a disorderly, even chaotic one. To this generation, Salia Koroma becomes a prophet, telling them to be careful for something comes. How could he have known that some five or so years after this recording, this chaos and tumult would turn into full-blown mayhem?
At the end of 'Ko Sao,' Salia Koroma used the metaphor of the fish basket stuck in a good fish hole (the accordion in the Bondo) and that of a strutting cockerel. No such arrogance now; and certainly no linguistic showing-off now. At the start and close of 'Jia Yengele' an old man calls for help. Given that those chiefly patrons who treated him as if he was royalty himself were now all dead, he turns to the new Masters of the Universe as we know them in Sierra Leone, those who're men enough to storm the House (of Parliament).
That, in itself, is an inversion of values, enough to make someone who'd hobnobbed with the samanga cry!
Jia Yengele from Nikiibu on Vimeo.
October 29, 2008
"When the great court gathered..."
Salia Koroma, M.A., O.R.R.S.L.
Salia's contribution to the cultural heritage of Sierra Leone is a well-established fact today, evidenced by the award of two honours before the singer's passing. The first recognition was a civil decoration, the Order of the Rokel (Republic of Sierra Leone), in the early1980's. A decade later, about two years before his death, Salia was awarded an honorary M.A. by the University of Sierra Leone. In a 1985/86 Government of Sierra Leone publication, Salia Koroma was listed among the 50 people who've contribution to the forging of the Sierra Leone nation and that of a distinct Sierra Leonean cultural identity.
Heady stuff for the nine-year old boy who'd left his native Njaluahun in 1912 in search of a father he believed would enrol him in one of the many mission schools that were sprouting all over Mende country at the turn of the century. For his school Salia was handed an accordion and told to go play for the Samanga, the Worthies of Mendeland.
With a hot warrior in your camp you go into battle without trembling If national and academic honours came late in his life, Salia's unique abilities were recognised right from the start in Mende country itself. And to this day he remains the single most favoured singer. It was quite common to hear contemporaries of the singer, our grandparents who spoke no other language but Mende, say this about Salia Koroma: "But the man knows the Mende language," or "What a clever man." What they noticed in what we thought was old people's music was Salia Koroma's artistic use of Mende, his ability to say so much in a little turn of a phrase. But Salia's primary audience were the chiefs and their courts, whose patronage, it would appear from the internal evidence of the songs, he didn't have to seek. That's how hot an artist he was. But such an evidence would be self-serving, wouldn't it? So we'll quote Gary Schulze who recorded Salia Koroma in 1962 for the Smithsonian Folkway Label (liner notes):
Salia Koroma, a man in his fifties,is one of the best known Mende singers in all of Sierra Leone. His instrument, the accordion, is of western import, but his songs deal with traditional themes of love, war, and death.He often reverts to a classical form of the Mende language not always readily understood by the younger generation.When Salia appears in a chiefdom, people journey from many miles around to hear him. He travels in his own Land-Rover, is in great demand by the Paramount Chiefs of Mendeland, and has made many commercial recordings of his songs, which he composes
himself.
October 28, 2008
Thanks isn't going to hurt, I'm sure.
Before I put up my next post, thanks are in order for Cocoa at Chocolate On My Cranium. This is a site I stumbled upon (as one often does for so many things on the net), and I've had loads of fun playing around with my site all because of the very excellent and dummy-proof instructions on her blog about customising the look and feel of a blog site. I filched quite a few design ideas from her. Also check out the ladies(?) at Smitten Blog Designs, and the fellow at Instigatorblog.com.
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