A Rukiga farmers’ song in praise of sorghum, one of their staple crops, from the Bakiga “people of the mountains”, who straddle the border between northern Ruanda and southern Uganda.
Sorghum, sorghum, O sorghum,
sorghum and Kiga are one…
The Cattle Killing
The subject of The Cattle Killing is one of the most baffling and controversial events in African history. In the spring of 1856, a teenaged Xhosa girl called Nongqawuse went to fetch water from a pool near the mouth of the Gxarha river. On her return, she told Mhlakaza, her uncle who was a diviner, that she had spoken with a group of the ancestors.
Letshitshiba
Le-tshi-tshi-ba
There occurred a problem and a confusion…
The Day Kenyatta Was Arrested
A Kikuyu song from Kenya referring to the arrest of Jomo Kenyatta in October 1952. Jomo Kenyatta was the leader of Kenya from independence in 1963 to his death in 1978, serving first as Prime Minister and then as President. He is considered the founding father of the Kenyan nation.
The day Kenyatta was arrested,
was on a Monday,
He was taken to the airport…
May Allah Give Me a True Friend
A Hausa song from northern Nigeria. The singer is longing for a child. It is from an anthropological record of the Hausa people, partly compiled from an oral account given by Baba (1877–1951), the daughter of a Hausa farmer and Koranic teacher, and translated by May K. Smith.
May Allah give me a true friend whether he’s small or big,
Even an infant sucking at the breast, or one lying in the womb…
The Horn of My Love
An Acoli girl’s love song from northern Uganda, collected and translated by the famous Ugandan poet Okot p’Bitek, author of Song of Lawino. It would be sung during the ortak or courtship dance.
Where has my love blown his horn?
The tune of his horn is well known…
Election Songs
Three Yorùbá songs, sung by women supporters of the two parties in the Federal elections of 1959 in western Nigeria.
The palm tree grows in the far bush:
Nobody allows the leper to build his house in the town:
The palm tree grows in the far bush…