FACTBOX: Senegal’s powerful Mourides have global reach
December 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(Reuters) – Serigne Saliou Mbacke, caliph of Senegal’s Mouride Muslim brotherhood died on Friday aged 92, throwing one of West Africa’s most powerful religious movements into mourning.
Saliou was the last surviving son of the Mourides’ 19th century founder Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, and had been caliph since 1990. Here are some facts about Islam and Mouridism in Senegal.
– Over 90 percent of Senegalese are Muslims. Most claim allegiance to one of four Sufi brotherhoods: half are Tidianes, a third Mourides and most others Qadriyya and Layennes.
– Although not the largest brotherhood, the Mourides wield most political, economic and religious influence.
– President Abdoulaye Wade, a member, regularly visits the Mouride holy city Touba, including after elections to thank the movement’s religious teachers, or marabouts, for their support.
– Since Bamba’s death in 1927, Mourides have followed his call for an annual pilgrimage to Touba, known as the Grand Magal, which marks Bamba’s exile to Gabon in 1895 by French colonial authorities who feared his growing influence.
– The Mourides’ vast contributions have paid to build an enormous marble-clad mosque whose 87-metre (287-foot) tower dominates the city’s skyline.
– As a holy city controlled by religious authorities where drinking and smoking are forbidden, Touba has special status as a semi-autonomous city within Senegal. Along with neighboring Mbacke it has grown into Senegal’s second biggest conurbation with a population of over 500,000.
– Bamba and El Hajj Malick Sy, leader of the Tidiane brotherhood, introduced today’s Sufism to Senegal in the late 19th century. It is a form of mystical Islam that hinges on the relationship between a disciple, or talibe, and his marabout.
– Bamba’s teachings promoting hard work as a route to paradise are summed up in the saying "Pray as if you will die tomorrow and work as if you will live forever".
– Despite open observance by both Muslims and Christians, Senegal is generally free from the sectarian conflict seen in some other West African countries such as Nigeria.
– The Baye Fall, recognizable by their dreadlocks and patchwork clothing, follow Bamba’s most famous disciple, Ibra Fall. Fall, a devoted Muslim but a poor Koranic scholar, was excused Islam’s five daily prayers by Bamba in return for hard work and strict devotion to the marabout.
– Originally a rural movement which controlled Senegal’s main cash-crop, peanuts, Mouridism changed forever when a prolonged drought afflicted West Africa in the 1970s, forcing its devotees to the cities. Many marabouts encouraged their followers to head overseas to seek their fortune from trade.
– In New York, the Mourides established their own community, Little Senegal, and July 28 has officially been designated Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba day. Their long robes and tasseled hats have become a familiar sight in Harlem.
(Compiled by Alistair Thomson)
Making music with a message
December 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
They sing about God – not drugs and gang warfare.
"It’s a positive message and Islam is a positive way of life," says Mohammad Yahya, the elder of the duo known as Blind Alphabetz.
The group chose their name because they say so many people are blind to the topics they sing about.
Mohammad and Abdul Rahman, are a little nervous about what to expect when they first turn up at Southfields Primary School in West London for a workshop with two classes.
Song of the converted
About one-third of the children in the school are Muslims from a range of backgrounds – mainly Somali, Bangladeshi and Pakistani.
All the children have been learning about Islam in advance of the workshop.
The rappers begin by asking the children if they can name any hip-hop artists.
The boys especially talk about Eminem and 50 Cent – musicians associated with a world of street gangs, drugs, sex and violence.
"We became Muslims but some people are born Muslims – we’re going to perform a track talking about that," explains Mohammad.
The turn on their ghetto blaster and do a song about their conversion to Islam, controversially setting to music the universal Muslim declaration of faith in Arabic: "There is only one God and Mohammad is his messenger."
"Islam is my world, music is my entertainment," goes one track.
"Free from harm, because I continue to embrace the Koran," says another.
Bitter critics
It is a fusion of Western culture with Muslim spiritual values.
But for some conservative Muslims this verges on blasphemy; they say music is "haram" – or not allowed – in their strict interpretation of Islam.
There are websites where critics complain bitterly that using hip-hop to spread the message of God is akin to doing missionary work from a brothel.
They say this style of music is decadent and corrupt.
"Islam is supposed to be practised now just as it was practised in the Prophet’s time," one Muslim woman writes on muslimhiphop.com.
She says compromise is not any good when if means sinning.
"That isn’t going to do you any favours when you are burning in hell, is it now?" she asks.
Culture clash
But Tony Ishola, editor of Platform – Britain’s main Islamic hip-hop magazine – says it is because groups like Blind Alphabetz are newcomers to Islam that they can leave a lot of cultural baggage behind and create a new British Muslim identity.
"They grew up without the Islamic culture from a different country; their actual upbringing was a western upbringing so a lot of them see nothing wrong with integrating hip-hop with Islam because hip-hop is their culture," he explains.
The majority of British Muslims are of South Asian origin and for them, Tony Ishola says, mixing modern music with religion is more of a clash of cultures at first.
"Their parents, their uncles, their aunties, their grandparents – they see the Western way of life as something negative," he says, adding that they often automatically reject anything to do with that way of life.
"A lot of people hear ‘Muslim hip-hop’ and they immediately back out: ‘We’re not going to touch that – that’s evil, it’s ‘haram’, it’s people singing’," he says.
"But when they actually listen to the lyrics, meet the people and talk to them, they see there is a positive message and what they’re saying is not against Islam."
Rhyme and reason
Blind Alphabetz try to get the children to work together in teams to compose their own rhymes, preferably about God.
They hope to show the Muslim kids in the class that you can be cool and true to your religion at the same time.
"If they think this medium is hip and in fashion you’ve got to give them an alternative," says Yahya, the group’s publicist.
"If you give them the bland hip-hop which is the 50 Cent – ‘I’ve got a nice Ferrari, Porsche, I sell drugs, I get a load of girls, I don’t care, I’ll shoot you in the head hip-hop’ – you’ll get a society of young adolescents willing to murder, steal, rob, rape, pillage, sell drugs and destroy society," he predicts.
The headmaster of Southfield Primary School, Charles Morrison, seems pleased with the experiment.
"The children had these notions that were perhaps placed in them by the media – this fear of Islam – and I still think to a certain degree among the population in the school there is a lack of understanding and that generates fear," he believes.
Blind Alphabetz also think the workshop has been a success and they are keen to do it again.
"We’d love to organise a school tour. I think there’s a lot of Muslim children in schools and they need to know what their identity is," says Mohammad as he gets ready to go to the mosque to say lunch-time prayers.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7158907.stm
B-Spirit Magazine
December 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
MEET…
Ben Herson is founder of Nomadic Wax record label, curator of the African Underground series of African hip-hop records and director of the internationally acclaimed documentary Democracy in Dakar, with colleague Magee McIlvaine
How did you first come into contact with Senegalese music?I met a drummer from Senegal called Abdoulaye Sall when I was 15. I’d just begun studying drums and was interested in African percussion. In 1998, I took my first trip to Senegal with Abdoulaye and it was then my interest in African music really took off.On my last day there I visited Marché Sandaga [Dakar’s outdoor market] to buy some cassettes. I noticed some locally produced hip-hop albums, which I purchased. I was amazed by the fact that Senegal even had a local hip-hop scene and was really curious to learn more.What did you make of the music?Once Senegalese friends started translating the lyrics for me, I came to realise hip-hop music in Senegal was quite deep in its political, social and spiritual message. It was the message in the music that drove me to want to write about and eventually produce African hip-hop, in the hope that other people might be inspired by the message as I’d been.
What are the biggest differences between Senegalese and Western hip-hop?The most discernible differences are lyrical content and language. By and large, Senegalese don’t rhyme about material desires, sex or violence. Instead they use hip-hop as a tool for self-expression and a way to promote a political philosophy or social/spiritual message. In Senegal, there tends to be a consciousness in the lyrical content that I find lacking in a great deal of US rap music.In what ways do Senegalese musicians address political issues in their music and what impact do their lyrics have?Throughout Senegalese history, West Africa has been home to a class of musicians called gewels [also called griots or jalis, depending on the country]. They serve as oral historians, keeping the history of the country and its people alive through songs and stories.Hip-hop is a powerful alternative for young people who want to express themselves because it’s an imported style that isn’t tied to these traditions or familial lineage. Hip-hop in Senegal exists as a separate social space for young people to talk about issues that in the past may have been taboo to speak about, such as politics, corruption and so on.How did the Democracy in Dakar documentary and African Undergroundproject come together?The project began as an extension of my undergraduate thesis, which was about the role of hip-hop in Senegal and explored the various ways young people have used it as means for political/social transformation. I stayed in contact with many of the rappers I’d interviewed and one of them suggested I make a compilation of Senegalese hip-hop for the Western market. I went back to Dakar with little more than a laptop computer, hard-disk recorder and a few microphones to record what eventually became the first of a series of African hip-hop compilations calledAfrican Underground.The documentary series was a logical extension of these audio projects. The concept was to create a series of documentary shorts we could upload to the web through viral media sites, such as YouTube, MySpace and Current TV, and disseminate the film internationally as it was happening.With your immersion in Senegalese music, can you say who your favourite musicians are? Is there anyone you’d tout as a future international star?That’s a difficult question to answer. Each MC has their own strengths and everyone brings their own unique flavour and style to the genre. I’d say the MCs who stand the most chance of breaking into the international market are those who are able to stay true to themselves and find a way to communicate with an international audience in a way that transcends the language barrier.www.africanunderground.com
