Lingala music had greater impact on the Luos who were at that time more educated than the rest of Kenyans and were more exposed to the outside world. No wonder, Nairobi, especially where Luos populated and their original hub of Kisumu along the Kavirondo Gulf (Lake Victoria) received more attention of Lingala music.
Lingala artists like Awilo Longomba, born in Kinshasa, with drummer Papa Wemba, were part of the orchestra “Viva La Musica.” Koffi Olomide and Tabu Ley who was an expert vocalist and songwriter in Soukous, and Franco and Papa Wemba, held Kenya music hostage for years since their forms of music instrumentations and drumbeats and the retinue of semi-naked muscular Congolese female dancers kept Kenyans at bay.
After the Russians and their allies were kicked out of Somalia in the late seventies, American Rock Music by the Commodores, Jackson Five, Lionel Richie, and Reggae by Reggae Raggamuffins Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh, captured Somalia's music recording industry. Of all hotels, the Friday nights resonating music from blaring loudspeakers fromJuba Hotel held the record for all hotels.
Though architecturally more classic in design than Juba Hotel because it was a high rise building, the ultramodern Curuba Hotel with Arabesque design---a visual art genre with interlacing foliage, had limited entertainment despite standing within the boundaries of the Indian Ocean beach. Surprisingly, depending on your observations and focus, if you were around those days and still have a recollection of the hotel's outlook, Al-Curuba Hotel did not have a fire exit gate.
My best childhood friend who worked for the Ministry of Tourism and Hotels, often switched hotels, mainly between Jubba and Al-Curuba respectively, and I was fortunate enough to see the beauty of some of Mogadishu's best hotels and as well feast on the best cuisine. I was devastated when he hastily left Somalia for Yemen via Djibouti. He was blown up to pieces by The PLO in a hotel in Yemen simply because a French Palestinian lady fell in love with him. A handsome man of light complexion, generous and very talented and eloquent in English and other languages, my dear friend and brother was executed unjustly. However, PLO paid a handsome amount of money as blood money in US Dollars to his younger brother who traveled from Somalia to Yemen.
For Kenya Somalis, with poaching and insecurity remaining at the highest stages, and the general living conditions akin to "libaaxi Alamtarana soo dhaaf", men in santana shoes, bell-bottom trousers and Afro-hair, struggled together to keep their heavier Panasonic tape recorder players out of harm's way. With zippered bags full of cassettes containing Somali songs like 'Jamaadey', 'Lilalaw', and others by Maxamed Mooge, Maxamed Saleebaan Tubeec, Sahra Axmed Jaamac, Khatra Daahir and Magool, after a bellyful of jogoo Ugali for lunch (soor), puffing a whiff of Sportsman cigarettes and having a cheek full of Miraa daaqsin plus one or two pills of Barbiturates or Benzodiazipine was enough to raise one's mental attention, according to Marqaantologists, to cloud nine.
Lingala artists like Awilo Longomba, born in Kinshasa, with drummer Papa Wemba, were part of the orchestra “Viva La Musica.” Koffi Olomide and Tabu Ley who was an expert vocalist and songwriter in Soukous, and Franco and Papa Wemba, held Kenya music hostage for years since their forms of music instrumentations and drumbeats and the retinue of semi-naked muscular Congolese female dancers kept Kenyans at bay.
After the Russians and their allies were kicked out of Somalia in the late seventies, American Rock Music by the Commodores, Jackson Five, Lionel Richie, and Reggae by Reggae Raggamuffins Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh, captured Somalia's music recording industry. Of all hotels, the Friday nights resonating music from blaring loudspeakers fromJuba Hotel held the record for all hotels.
Though architecturally more classic in design than Juba Hotel because it was a high rise building, the ultramodern Curuba Hotel with Arabesque design---a visual art genre with interlacing foliage, had limited entertainment despite standing within the boundaries of the Indian Ocean beach. Surprisingly, depending on your observations and focus, if you were around those days and still have a recollection of the hotel's outlook, Al-Curuba Hotel did not have a fire exit gate.
My best childhood friend who worked for the Ministry of Tourism and Hotels, often switched hotels, mainly between Jubba and Al-Curuba respectively, and I was fortunate enough to see the beauty of some of Mogadishu's best hotels and as well feast on the best cuisine. I was devastated when he hastily left Somalia for Yemen via Djibouti. He was blown up to pieces by The PLO in a hotel in Yemen simply because a French Palestinian lady fell in love with him. A handsome man of light complexion, generous and very talented and eloquent in English and other languages, my dear friend and brother was executed unjustly. However, PLO paid a handsome amount of money as blood money in US Dollars to his younger brother who traveled from Somalia to Yemen.
For Kenya Somalis, with poaching and insecurity remaining at the highest stages, and the general living conditions akin to "libaaxi Alamtarana soo dhaaf", men in santana shoes, bell-bottom trousers and Afro-hair, struggled together to keep their heavier Panasonic tape recorder players out of harm's way. With zippered bags full of cassettes containing Somali songs like 'Jamaadey', 'Lilalaw', and others by Maxamed Mooge, Maxamed Saleebaan Tubeec, Sahra Axmed Jaamac, Khatra Daahir and Magool, after a bellyful of jogoo Ugali for lunch (soor), puffing a whiff of Sportsman cigarettes and having a cheek full of Miraa daaqsin plus one or two pills of Barbiturates or Benzodiazipine was enough to raise one's mental attention, according to Marqaantologists, to cloud nine.
