Clandestino Podcast

At the beginning of the 20th century, the taarab music of Zanzibar was revolutionized by the singer Siti Binti Saad. In stark contrast to previous versions, hers was an improvised people's music with lyrics in both Arabic and Swahili. As the first female superstar of the genre, Siti Binti Saad also paved the way for coming generations – one of them being her great granddaughter Siti Muharam, who is bringing new life to the old songs on a much acclaimed album called Siti of Unguja. 
In this episode, Markus Görsch is joined  by Siti Muharam as well as oud player Hassan Mahenge and Pete Buckenham of the record label On the Corner. We'll hear about the process behind this album and about Siti Binti Saad's importance for the music of Zanzibar. 

From the underground scene of Nairobi, Kenya comes this duo consisting of Martin Khanja and Sam Karagu. As Duma they make extreme metal using samples of traditional drumming, synthesizers, found sounds and drums machines, sometimes played at a mindblowing 666 beats per minute.

They both used to play in bands with traditional lineups including guitars and drumkits. But when one of these groups – The Seeds of Datura – drifted apart, Martin and Sam decided to cross the border to Uganda and record for the experimental label Nyege Nyege Tapes.

Moroccan singer and master of several string instruments Majid Bekkas is one of the foremost modern gnawa musicians. He is also one of the genre's superspreaders to the west through his collaborations with jazz legends such as Archie Shepp and Pharaoh Sanders. And lately, he has been playing with the Magic Spirit Quartet alongside Swedish trumpeter Goran Kajfeš and others. In episode nine, Markus Görsch talks to Majid Bekkas about all these collaborations, and about the magic that is musical improvisation.  

Meet Hasan Nakhleh, singer and keyboard player of the band Tootard. He started the band with his brother Rami when they were both living in the Golan Heights. Since then they have gone through several line ups and their style has changed from Mali blues meets Arabic reggae to a kind of 80's Levantine disco sound, like on their latest album Migrant Birds. 

In this interview Hasan Nakhleh talks to Markus Görsch about the band's dream of traveling freely, about relocating to Europe, and how a cheap oriental-scale synthesizer caused a sort of Proustian madeleine-experience. And why the band chose the name Tootard, meaning "strawberry" in Arabic.

On their album Nayda, the French-Moroccan group Bab L' Bluz use modernized versions of the traditional string instruments guembri and awicha, to create a combination of North African gnawa and hassani music, mixed with blues and rock n roll noises.

Bab l' Bluz talk to Markus Görsch about the role of female musicians in Morocco, and about their unique sound, created not only through the mix of many traditions but also by using gardening equipment as part of their instruments. But the story begins in Morocco, where the two main songwriters Yousra Mansour and Brice Battin started writing songs together after meeting at a festival. 

Meet Nuri, a musician who uses field recordings, pygmy songs and tribal drums. Not to forget drum machines and FAT bass, creating electronic dance music that he calls Afro Bass. 
His full name is Amine Nouri, and he grew up in Tunisia but has spent more than half of the last decade in Copenhagen.
One of his influences is Stambeli, an ancient Sufi music with ecstatic and healing capacities. Stambeli was once banned in Tunisia, but was nevertheless played and became a symbol of freedom in Nuri’s homeland.
But his career didn't begin in electronic music – Nuri started out as a drummer when he was 14, playing in various bands.

Asad Buda is an Afghan writer and artist. He was born during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and was only two years old when his father was killed by the Mujahideen. A member of the country’s Hazar minority, Asad Buda had a religious upbringing. As a teenager he moved to Iran to study Islam. However, his experiences, along with the discovery of writers such as Paul Celan eventually made him question political Islam. He would soon move his focus towards sociology and literature studies in Teheran, where he was later to be imprisoned. In 2015, he came to Sweden on a scholarship as a refugee writer in Karlstad. In this interview, made by Mia Herman, he talks–among other things–about his poem Urbicide and the ideas behind it. The music in this episode was performed by Aziz Herawi.

Clandestino Podcast # 4: Roger Robinson
Roger Robinson is a poet, activist and singer of King Midas Sound. The Swedish edition of his latest collection of poems is being released in December 2020, a book entitled A Portable Paradis, which explores the idea of a utopian paradise. Robinson writes about the paradise that was denied the inhabitants of Grenfell Tower, an apartment building in London where a fire caused 72 deaths. And the paradise denied to the so-called Windrush generation, migrants who crossed the sea from former Caribbean colonies to Britain between 1948 and 1970.
Roger Robinson was born in London but moved to his parents' Trinidad when he was three years old. He eventually returned to London and made a name for himself as a poet in the 90s. In this episode of Clandestino Podcast, he is interviewed by Jakob Kaee from Aska Förlag, publisher of A Portable Paradise in Swedish, and by Maziar Farsin, translator of that version of the book.

In episode three of Clandestino Podcast, we meet guitarist and singer Lula Pena. Her music has been praised by the likes of Caetano Veloso, while others describe her voice as a female version of Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits. Traces of French chanson, bossa nova and Greek traditional music can be heard in Lula Pena's songs, blending with the music she once became known for: the Portuguese fado, songs of loss and longing, once sung by sailors far away on the outskirts of the Portuguese Empire. Markus Görsch interviewed Lula Pena just before her concert arranged by Clandestino Festival at Folkteatern in Gothenburg, Sweden. 

I det tredje avsnittet av Clandestino Podcast träffar vi gitarristen och sångerskan Lula Pena. Storheter som Caetano Veloso har hyllat hennes musik, och vissa beskriver hennes röst som en kvinnlig version av av Leonard Cohen eller Tom Waits. Fransk chanson, bossanova och grekisk folkmusik hörs i Lula Penas musik, men någonstans under alla lager finns den portugisiska fadon: Sånger om saknad och längtan, som en gång sjöngs av sjömän långt borta i det portugisiska imperiets utkanter. Fado handlar om att vara i rörelse och har alltid varit en musikstil i förändring. Markus Görsch intervjuade Lula Pena kort innan med hennes konsert som arrangerades av Clandestino Festival på Folkteatern i Göteborg.

I avsnitt två träffar vi Ebo Krdum, gitarrist, sångare och låtskrivare. Musikkarriären började när han som grabb spelade muntrummor och sjöng på gatorna i Darfur. På en hemmabyggd gitarr lärde han sig sedan spela, inspirerad av afroblueskungen Ali Farka Touré. Idag bor han i Stockholm och har utnämnts till Årets nykomling på Folk- och världsmusiken tillsammans med bandet Genuine Mezziga. I den här podcasten berättar Ebo Krdum också om hur regimen i Sudan utsatte honom för tortyr och fängelse på grund av hans politiska aktivism. Ebo Krdum intervjuas av Markus Görsch.