The Secret Somali Tapes
Kerning Cultures
Kerning Cultures Network
4.9 • 529 Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2022
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s 1988, and Somalis are fleeing the city of Hargeisa. People are trying to get out, trying to save their families. But in the city’s radio station, staff are packing cassettes and reel to reel recordings into a secret underground bunker. On them: A slice of their country’s musical heritage, to remain for years in an underground room—until now.
This episode was produced in collaboration with Far Flung with Saleem Reshamwala, from the TED Audio Collective. To listen to other episodes that travel all over the world to explore ideas, follow Far Flung with Saleem Reshamwala wherever you're listening to this.
This episode was produced by Sawsan Abdillahi, Hiwote Getaneh, Alex Atack and Saleem Reshamwala. Production support in Hargeisa by Ismaaciil C. Ubax. Fact checking by Nicole Bode and Paul Durban, and sound design by Kristin Mueller. The executive producer was Eric Nuzum.
Special thanks to Vik Sahonie at Ostinato Records for letting us use the music from the Sweet As Broken Dates album.
You can hear songs from the buried tapes on this Spotify playlist.
Find a transcript for this episode on our website: kerningcultures.com/kerningcultures.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $2 a month.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And one story that always kind of captures my imagination. |
| 0:07.8 | The street's lost culture. |
| 0:12.7 | And you're listening to Kearning cultures. |
| 0:18.7 | Hi everyone, this is Dana. |
| 0:20.8 | Today we're excited to share a super special collaboration we made with a podcast |
| 0:25.0 | far-flung with Salim Rishamwala in collaboration with TED Audio Collective. It's a story that takes us to |
| 0:32.1 | Somaliland at the end of the 1980s as the country was spiraling into a civil war when a team of dedicated radio producers |
| 0:39.6 | decided to bury their archive of cassette tapes in an underground bunker. If you want to hear |
| 0:45.5 | more from Farflung, and I highly recommend you do, you can take a listen wherever you get your |
| 0:50.4 | podcasts, wherever you're listening to this. Okay, here's Salaim. |
| 0:55.9 | The year is 1988, and in Hargasa, at the time in northern Somalia, |
| 1:01.9 | MIG-17 fighter jets streak across the sky, back and forth above the city. |
| 1:07.3 | On the ground, soldiers are going door-to-door, looting warehouses, shops, even mosques, where families have hidden their valuables. |
| 1:16.1 | They thought they'd be safe, but the president, Siyad Bari, and his regime forces, are bombarding their own people from the air. |
| 1:25.5 | It's supposed to be the final blow in a military campaign to squash the growing insurgent |
| 1:30.5 | groups challenging his presidency, but instead it marks the beginning of a bitter civil war |
| 1:36.7 | that will ravage the country for decades to come. |
| 1:40.1 | Officially, it still hasn't ended. |
| 1:43.2 | What happened is an entire city, |
| 1:46.6 | renowned as a mother of Somali art, |
| 1:50.1 | has been completely destroyed in 1988. |
| 1:54.3 | That's Dr. Jama Musa Jama, |
... |
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