The Heartbeat of Australia

The Melbourne-based band Blue King Brown, led by frontwoman Natalie Pa’apa’a (PAH-ah-PAH-ah) was a good one to feature in the Global Hit today. Especially after the incident today in Australia in which a confrontation developed between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and aboriginal protestors, it was good to balance that out with a story of less contentious activism.
Aside from the songs Blue King Brown writes, they’re also deeply engaged in a project run by Australia’s Music Outback Foundation. For more than seven years, they’ve volunteered as music teachers for aboriginal school kids. From Melbourne, they fly four hours to the smack dab center of the country, Alice Springs. Then a three-hour ride over dirt roads into the desert. And there, in one village, four times a year, they spend a couple of weeks with local children. Natalie Pa’apa’a tells the rest of that story, and what the band’s aim is.

Why S.M.O.D. Isn’t S.O.D.

Because they still like “M” (Mouzy) and consider him a close friend.

Here are the current members of Malian ensemble S.M.O.D., from left to right:  Ousco, Sam and Donsky.

We featured S.M.O.D. today on the show. What I left out of their story is that Mouzy left the band a year after they formed in 2002.  But it made no sense to change the name of the group (also partly because S.M.O.D. happens to be an affectionate name for a pet in Mali).

Bandleader Sam Bagayoko, son of Amadou & Mariam (“the blind couple of Mali”), tells the rest.  If you understand French, listen to the excerpt from the interview below.  If not, here’s the translation.

Sam:
Our fourth member is Mouzy, the M in the group SMOD.  In fact SMOD are the initials of the group’s members:  Sam, Mouzy, Ousco, Donsky.  M stopped making music.  He travelled.  He did other stuff.  But he remains our bud.  He’s in Paris.  There wasn’t any rancor, no quarrel.  He just wanted to stop making music.
Marco:
So for the moment is it SOD?
Sam:
Voila!  (laughs)  No, the name remains SMOD.
Ousco:
See, Mouzy is still our really good friend.  When we’re in Paris, we share lots of good times.  So we figured SMOD is how we formed ourselves, we made music together.  So why not remain committed to the music, why not remain a group of friends?  We hang out as four.  It’s just that he stopped making music.

No, Sir, Google and the CIA Are Not the Same

Today, I interviewed Wael Ghonim (wah-ELL go-NEEM), author of the just published Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People Is Greater Than the People in Power, and the man who steered the Egyptian revolution on Facebook. Reading Revolution 2.0 and speaking with him cleared up a number of questions I had.
1. Where did Ghonim physically do his admin work on his Facebook page?
As a Google executive, he lived in Dubai. But as an activist, he split his time between Dubai and Cairo. And wherever he was, that’s where he’d discreetly take care of admin on the Facebook page that initially made the appeal to Egyptians to turn out at Tahrir Square.
2. Did Google mind Ghonim’s activism?
In the lead-up to Tahrir Square, Google provided Ghonim a lot of wiggle room to do his job with the company and attend to his activism in Egypt. So did his wife, Ilka.
3. Where was Ghonim during the protests?
When the protests began on January 25, 2011, Ghonim was in Cairo, with the crowds at Tahrir Square. Two days later he was arrested, and was in custody for 11 days. When he got out, “I felt like I was captured for eleven years.” Everything obviously had changed.

I asked Ghonim what happened while he was in custody. The first few days he was interrogated by Egyptian security. The interrogators were determined to catch him lying. But he also faced grave misunderstandings on the part of the interrogators, such as their belief that Google and the CIA were working together. That still makes Ghonim laugh, despite his ominous situation in detention. Here’s Wael Ghonim commenting on that.

Nigeria: Music in Protest, Protest in Music

Every day this week in Lagos, Seun Kuti, the son of Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Anikulapo Kuti, has joined in protests against the government’s decision to end fuel subsidies in the country. (Read the Guardian’s story here). On January 1, 2012, gas prices in Nigeria doubled overnight. Nigerians are furious. For Seun Kuti, it’s another sign that the government is not fully disclosing its finances.

In 2009, I visited Lagos to profile Seun for the PBS series “Sound Tracks.” I met his band the Egypt 80 at Seun’s home the Kalakuta Republic, the house and “independent state” Fela built. The Egypt 80 was Fela’s band. Seun took it over and added some new personnel. “It’s three generations of people you know,” Seun says of the Egypt 80. “People in their 70s, people from their 50s to their 70s. 30s and 40s. People in their 20s. You know, it’s a typical family.”

I’ve never had a chance to post these portraits I took of Seun and the Egypt 80. So here there are. The pictures were taken mid-afternoon at the Kalakuta Republic. The rust-colored paint worked amazingly well with the natural light, and everyone was in a good mood.

Seun Kuti

"Baba Ani" Lekan Animashaun, keyboards

Kola Onasanya, congas

Wale Toriola, clavé/sticks

Ajayi Raimi, drums

"Shigogo" Segun Odubanjo, Seun Kuti's body-man

Oyinade Deniran, tenor sax

Kunle Justice, bass

Alade Oluwagbemiga, rhythm guitar

David Obanyedo, guitar

fan and regular at the Kalakuta Republic

fan and regular at the Kalakuta Republic

fan and regular at the Kalakuta Republic

Ade Oloye, Seun's assistant

Joy Ayomide Opara, singer and dancer

Iyabo Adeniran, singer and dancer

Ademiluyi Yetunde-George, singer and dancer

Muyiwa Kunnuji, trumpet

"GP Saxy" Olugbade Okunade, trumpet and soprano sax

keyboard player Baba Ani's hands

What’s In a Flag?

Borzou Daragahi of the Financial Times spoke with me today about the situation in Syria now that Arab League monitors have had a few days to monitor the violence inside the country. One development that Borzou spoke of that he wrote about in today’s edition of the FT is the flag that Syrian activists have now adopted as their own. It’s a significant bit of news says Borzou.

the current Syrian flag

the older flag of Syria, now revived by activists there

The Berlin Blackout of “White Christmas” in Japanese

Saori Yuki, Marco Werman and Thomas Lauderdale

In the last edition of PRI’s The World for 2011, we’ll be featuring Portland, Oregon’s own Pink Martini. If you don’t know of them yet, you should. Led by founder Thomas Lauderdale, the ensemble is a quirky modern version of an old dance orchestra. They’re also keenly motivated by the state of the planet. Last year, Pink Martini met and performed with Japanese pop music legend Saori Yuki. The relationship deepened in 2011 with the destruction of the March tsunami in northeast Japan. Plans then gelled for Yuki to perform again with Pink Martini in the U.S. for a tsunami benefit concert.

When Lauderdale and Yuki came to The World’s studio recently, she sang a priceless version of Auld Lang Syne in Japanese. Here though is Lauderdale and Yuki telling the backstory of how they accompanied her last year when she sang a translated Japanese version of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”

The World’s Top Music Picks 2011

It’s the end of the year.  It’s list time. 

Here are mine and Global Hit producer April Peavey’s.

April Peavey’s List (alphabetical order)

Kate Bush – 50 Words for SnowVinicius Cantuaria & Bill Frisell – Lagrimas Mexicanas

Dengue Fever – Cannibal Courtship

 La Vida Boheme – Nuestra

Various – Chicas! Spanish Female Singers 1962-1974

Marco Werman’s List (alphabetical order)

Beirut – The Rip Tide

Fatoumata Diawara – FatouFrente Cumbiero – Meets Mad ProfessorJust a Band – 82

Michael Kiwanuka – Isle of Wight Sessions

Seun Kuti and the Egypt 80 – From Africa with Fury: Rise

Ocote Soul Sounds – Taurus

Sola Rosa – Get It TogetherVarious – Red Hot and Rio Two

“Team America” Is Not on State Dept’s Must-See Movie List

We spoke with Stephen Bosworth today on the show about North Korea. Bosworth was until recently President Obama’s special envoy for North Korea. He’s also the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. After we came out of the studio, my producer pulled me aside and commented with a smile “I can’t believe you asked him that question!” Here’s that question.

Ambassador Zappa, I Presume

You may have known that the late Vaclav Havel was a lifelong fan of Frank Zappa. It’s perhaps not coincidental that the house-band of Havel’s Velvet Revolution, Prague’s own Plastic People of the Universe, took their name from a Frank Zappa song.  (This is a good item, by the way, in today’s Rolling Stone on the connections between Havel, Zappa and the Plastic People).
I spoke today with Paul Wilson, who translated many of Havel’s writings from Czech into English. I asked him to fill me in on one thing he knew about Havel’s relationship with Zappa.

Last One Out, Please Turn Off the Lights

Remember the ominous warnings of what the American shock-and-awe strategy was going to do to downtown Baghdad? That feels like a long time ago. It was actually eight years, nine months ago. Today, the US flag came down, and troops left. I spoke with McClatchy newspapers reporter Sahar Issa, who is Iraqi, about the day and what it meant.