Nicolas Sheikholeslami & Vik Sohonie – Somali Sounds from Mogadishu to Djibouti {2017}

Photography by Janto Djassi.
Photography by Janto Djassi.

Berlin based researcher Nicolas Sheikholeslami aka Çaykh publishes the amazing new mix-tape Somali Sounds from Mogadishu to Djibouti with hauntingly beautiful and impressive unheard music from Somalia. It’s the follow-up of his first mix Au Revoir Mogadishu. A remastered compilation is scheduled to be released by Ostinato Records featuring highlights of the mix for later this year.

To be completely honest, I don’t know much about Somalia, maybe you don’t know much about it, too. But right now, many Somalians need to leave their country because there’s not enough water and food to survive. 1.4 million people are already living in exile and 245.000 alone fled to Ethiopia. The developed Western world can’t continue to ignore pressing matters like this.

I wasn’t completely aware of this tragic situation since my brother Markus sent me a link to the charity project Love Army for Somalia on Monday. The great project contacted Turkish Airlines and asked them if they could use one of their airplanes to transport food to Somalia and they agreed. They managed to collect $2.3 million to buy 60 tons of food and transport it to Somalia. Together with Markus I’m working on a social startup named LoveWaves (online soon) that wants to make it easy to fight hunger and the destruction of the environment.

Coincidently, Nicolas wrote me a nice message at the same day and asked me to feature Somali Sounds from Mogadishu to Djibouti and I’m happy to do this. Somali Sounds from Mogadishu to Djibouti is very entertaining and shows the incredibly rich and diverse cultural influences of the country. It features Somali folk music infused with Western funk, rock and reggae.

For me it’s hard to categorize the music, I can surely hear influences of Ethiopian, Arabian and African music but it sounds very unique and at the same time close and far away to me. It sounds like you’d tune in on a radio station from another planet and keep listening for hours, baffled and attracted. I love it when music brings me to open up to new cultures and Somali Sounds from Mogadishu to Djibouti manages this perfectly. You can find more information about the music and the mix-tape on Okayafrica.

 

 

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