Dur-Dur Band - Dur Dur of Somalia - Volume 1, Volume 2 & Previously Unreleased Tracks '2018

Tracks list

 When Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb arrived in Mogadishu in November
of 2016, he was informed by his host that he would have to be accompanied at all
times by an armed escort while in the country. The next morning, a neighbour and
former security guard put on a military uniform, borrowed an AK-47 from
somewhere and escorted him to Via Roma, an historical street in the heart of
Hamar-Weyne, the citys oldest district. Although previous Analog Africa releases
have demonstrated a willingness to go more than the extra air-mile to track down
the stories behind the music, the trip to Mogadishu was a musical journey of a
different kind. It was the culmination of an odyssey that had started many years
earlier.

In 2007 John Beadle, a Milwaukee-based musicologist and owner of the much loved
Likembe blog, uploaded a cassette he had been handed twenty years earlier by a
Somalian student. The post was titled Mystery Somali Funk and it was, in Samys
own words, some of the deepest funk ever recorded. The cassette seemed to credit
these dense, sonorous tunes to the legendary Iftin Band. But initial contact
with Iftins lead singer suggested that the mystery funk may have actually been
the work of their chief rival, Dur-Dur, a young band from the 80s.

Back then, Mogadishu had been a very different place.
On the bustling Via Roma, people from all corners of society would gather at the
Bar Novecento and Cafe Cappucino, watch movies at the famous Supercinema, and
eat at the numerous pasta hang-outs or the traditional restaurants that served
Bariis Maraq, a somali Beef Stew mixed with delicious spiced rice. The same
street was also home to Iftinphone and Shankarphone, two of the citys best known
music shop. Located opposite each other, they were the centre of Somalias
burgeoning cassette distribution network. Both shops, run by members of the
legendary Iftin Band, would become first-hand witnesses to the meteoric rise of
Dur- Dur, a rise that climaxed in April of 1987 with the release of Volume 2,
their second album.

The first single Diinleya had taken Somalian airwaves by storm in a way rarely
seen before or since. The next single, Dab, had an even greater impact, and the
two hits had turned them into the hottest band in town. In addition to their
main gig as house band at the legendary Jubba Hotel, Dur-Dur had also been asked
to perform the music for the play Jascyl Laba Ruux Mid Ha Too Rido (May one of
us fall in love) at Mogadishus national theatre. The play was so successful that
the management had been forced to extend the run by a month, throwing the
theatres already packed schedule into complete disarray; and each night, as soon
as the play had finished, Dur-Dur had to pack their instruments into a
Volkswagen T1 tour bus that would shuttle them across town in time for their
hotel performance.

The secrets to Dur-Durs rapid success is inextricably linked to the vision of
Isse Dahir, founder and keyboard player of the band. Isses plan was to locate
some of the most forward-thinking musicians of Mogadishus buzzing scene and lure
them into Dur-Dur. Ujeeri, the bands mercurial bass player was recruited from
Somali Jazz and drummer extraordinaire Handal previously played in Bakaka Band.
These two formed the backbone of Dur-Dur and would become one of Somalias most
extraordinary rhythm sections.

Isse also added his two younger brothers to the line-up: Abukar Dahir Qassin was
brought in to play lead guitar, and Ahmed Dahir Qassin was hired as a permanent
sound engineer, a first in Somalia and one of the reasons that Dur-Dur became
known as the best-sounding band in the country.

On their first two albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2, three different singers traded
lead-vocal duties back and forth. Shimaali, formerly of Bakaka Band, handled the
Daantho songs, a Somalian rhythm from the northern part of the country that
bears a striking resemblance to reggae; Sahra Dawo, a young female singer, had
been recruited from Somalias national orchestra, the Waaberi Band. Their third
singer, the legendary Baastow, whose nickname came from the italian word pasta
due to the spaghetti-like shape of his body, had also been a vocalist with the
Waaberi Band, and had been brought into Dur-Dur due to his deep knowledge of
traditional Somali music, particularly Saar, a type of music intended to summon
the spirits during religious rituals. These traditional elements of Dur-Durs
repertoire sometimes put them at odds with the manager of the Jubba Hotel who
once told Baastow I am not going to risk having Italian tourists possessed by
Somali spirits. Stick to disco and reggae.

Yet from the very beginning, Dur-Durs doctrine was the fusion of traditional
Somali music with whatever rhythms would make people dance: Funk, Reggae, Soul,
Disco and New Wave were mixed effortlessly with Banaadiri beats, Daantho and
spiritual Saar music. The concoction was explosive and when they stormed the
Mogadishu music scene in 1986 with their very first hit single, Yabaal,
featuring vocals from Sahra Dawo, it was clear that a new meteorite had
crash-landed in Somalia. As Abdulahi Ahmed, author of Somali Folk Dances
explains: Yabaal is a traditional song, but the way it was played and recorded
was like nothing else we had heard before, it was new to us. Yabaal was one of
the songs that resurfaced on the Likembe blog, and it became the symbolic
starting point of this project.

It initially seemed that Dur-Durs music had only been preserved as a series of
murky tape dubs and YouTube videos, but after Samy arrived in Mogadishu he
eventually got to the heart of Mogadishus tape-copying network – an
analogue forerunner of the internet file-sharing that helped to keep the flame
of this music alive through the darkest days of Somalias civil strife –
and ended up finding some of the bands fabled master tapes, long thought to have
disappeared.

This triple LP / double CD reissue of the bands first two albums – the
first installment in a three-part series dedicated to Dur-Dur Band –
represents the first fruit of Analog Africas long labours to bring this
extraordinary music to the wider world. Remastered from the best available audio
sources, these songs have never sounded better. Some thirty years after they
first made such a splash in the Mogadishu scene, they have been freed from the
wobble and tape-hiss of second and third generation cassette dubs, to reveal a
glorious mix of polychromatic organs, nightclub-ready rhythms and hauntingly
soulful vocals.

In addition to two previously unreleased tracks, the music is accompanied by
extensive liner notes, featuring interviews with original band members,
documenting a forgotten chapter of Somalias cultural history. Before the
upheaval in the 1990s that turned Somalia into a war-zone, Mogadishu, the white
pearl of the Indian Ocean, had been one of the jewels of eastern Africa, a
modern paradise of culture and commerce. In the music of the Dur-Dur band
– now widely available outside of Somalia – we can still catch a
fleeting glimpse of that golden age. 
:: TRACKLIST ::

1. Ohiyee (05:56)
2. Yabaal (05:57)
3. Heelo (09:02)
4. Hiyeeley (03:58)
5. Aw Baahilowlow (06:20)
6. Doon Baa Maraysoo (07:30)
7. Salkudhigey (previously unreleased) (06:50)
8. Haddi Aanan Gacaloy (previously unreleased) (08:52)
9. Intro Vol.2 (01:03)
10. Jaceyl Mirahiis (05:21)
11. Dab (07:11)
12. Saafiyeey Makaa Saraayeey (02:53)
13. Jaajumoow Jees (05:43)
14. Diinleeya (05:40)
15. Caashaqa Maxaa ii Baray (05:13)
16. Keene Gardaran (03:59)
17. Jubba Aaka (07:35)
18. Aduun Hawli Kama Dhamaato (08:40)

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