Balwo
   HOME
*





Balwo
Balwo is a style of music and poetry practiced in Somalia as well as Djibouti. Its lyrical contents often deal with love and passion. The Balwo genre was founded by Abdi Sinimo. Origins The Balwo genre was founded by Abdi Sinimo, a Somali of the Reer Nuur subclan of the Gadabuursi. The first Heelo (Which is considered a sub genre of Balwo) was brought fourth by Abdi Sinimo as well. In 1945, while working as a lorry driver for the Djiboutian Port Authority, Abdi Sinimo was driving his truck and had experienced misfortune when around the Zeila area, thus the first Balwo was created. He called it "Balwo" (meaning misfortune in Somali), because of the remoteness of where his truck had experienced difficulty. The Balwo is a simple love lyric that has revolutionized modern Somali music. Another artist who made significant contributions to the genre was Abdullahi Qarshe, who is credited with the introduction of the kaban (oud) as an accompaniment to Somali music. In an interview w ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Gadabuursi
The Gadabuursi ( Somali: ''Gadabuursi'', Arabic: جادابورسي), also known as ''Samaroon'' (Arabic: ''قبيلة سَمَرُون)'', is a northern Somali clan, a sub-division of the Dir clan family. The Gadabuursi are geographically spread out across three countries: Ethiopia, Somaliland and Djibouti. Among all of the Gadabuursi inhabited regions of the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is the country where the majority of the clan reside. In Ethiopia, the Gadabuursi are mainly found in the Somali Region, but they also inhabit the Harar, Dire Dawa and Oromia regions. In Somaliland, the Gadabuursi are the predominant clan of the Awdal Region.Samatar, Abdi I. (2001) "Somali Reconstruction and Local Initiative: Amoud University," , p. 132. They are mainly found in cities and towns such as Borama, Baki, Lughaya, Zeila, Dilla, Jarahorato, Amud, Abasa, Fiqi Aadan, Quljeed, Boon and Harirad and Wajale, Magalo ad. In Ethiopia, the Gadabuursi are the predominant clan of the Awb ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Abdi Sinimo
Abdi Sinimo ( so, Cabdi Siniimoo, ar, سنيمو) (born 1920, died 1967) was a Somali singer, songwriter, poet and musical innovator. He is noted for having established the Balwo genre of Somali music, which was the forerunner of the Heelo genre and thus gave birth to modern Somali music. Early years Sinimo was born in the 1920s in Jaarahorato, an historical village situated north-east of the present Borama, Somaliland. He hailed from the Reer Nuur clan. He was the fourth son in a family of 18 children, consisting of nine boys and nine girls. Even though born in Borama district at that time, he spent most of his life in Djibouti working for the Djibouti Port Authority as a driver of a transshipment truck from Djibouti city to Addis Ababa, via Dire Dawa. Music career In an interview with Abdullahi Qarshe published by Bildhaan Vol. 2 page 80, he affirmed that "modern music was in the air at the time of Abdi Sinimo, who is widely regarded as the genius who formulated and orga ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Abdullahi Qarshe
Abdullahi Qarshe ( so, Cabdilaahi Qarshe, ar, عبدالله قارشي) (1924–1994) was a Somali people, Somali musician, poet and playwright known as the "Father of Music of Somalia, Somali music". In 1957 he wrote and composed the Somali National Anthem, Qolobaa Calankeed. Biography Early life Qarshe was born in 1924 in the Somali expatriate community in Moshi, Kilimanjaro, Moshi, Tanzania. He belonged to the Mousa Arreh subdivision of the Habar Yoonis sub clan of Garhajis Isaaq that mainly inhabits the Togdheer region of Somaliland. Before migrating to Tanzania, his family was based in the town of Maydh, in the Sanaag region in eastern Somaliland, where they were the keepers of the tomb of Ishaaq bin Ahmed, Shaykh Ishaaq, the common progenitor of the wider Isaaq clan family. In 1931, at the behest of his family, he left Tanzania and settled in Aden, Yemen for his education, where he subsequently Hafiz (Quran), memorized the entire Quran. It is in Aden where Abdullahi also ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Somalian Music
The Music of the Somali people () is music following the musical styles, techniques and sounds of the Somali people. Overview Traditional Somali music Somali people have a rich musical heritage centered on traditional Somali folklore. Somali songs are pentatonic. That is, they only use five pitches per octave in contrast to a heptatonic (seven note) scale such as the major scale. At first listen, Somali music might be mistaken for the sounds of nearby regions such as Oromo in Ethiopia, Sudan or the Arabian peninsula, but it is ultimately recognizable by its own unique tunes and styles. Somali songs are usually the product of collaboration between lyricists (''lahamiste''), songwriters (''abwaan''), and vocalists (''odka'' or "voice").Abdullahi, pp.170-171 The Somali word for dance is ''ciyaar''. Traditional instruments prominently featured in the music of Somaliland include the oud lute (''kaban''). It is often accompanied by small drums and a reed flute in the background ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Djibouti
Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east. The country has an area of . In antiquity, the territory, together with Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somaliland, was part of the Land of Punt. Nearby Zeila, now in Somaliland, was the seat of the medieval Adal and Ifat Sultanates. In the late 19th century, the colony of French Somaliland was established following treaties signed by the ruling Dir Somali sultans with the French, and its railroad to Dire Dawa (and later Addis Ababa) allowed it to quickly supersede Zeila as the port for southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden. It was renamed the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas in 1967. A decade later, the Djiboutian people voted for independence. This officially marked the establishment of the ''Rep ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Reer Nuur
The Reer Nuur (Somali: Reer Nuur, ) also known as Nuur Yoonis (), is a noble northern Somali clan, a sub-division of the Makahiil sub-clan of the Gadabursi clan family. Overview The Reer Nuur are one of the biggest sub-divisions of the Gadabursi clan family. Historically, they occupy the buffer zone between the Gadabuursi and Isaaq tribes. Historically, when the clan would meet for political affairs, the ''Reer Nuur'' would be counted as one separate branch, on equal standing with the ''Habar Afan'', ''Mahad Case'', ''Aadan Yonis'' and the ''Jibril Yonis,'' sub groups of the Gadabursi family . Distribution The Reer Nuur reside in 3 countries, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somaliland. Within Somaliland, the Reer Nuur reside in the Awdal province, and dominate the Baki District and Dilla District. They also inhabit the Borama District and Zeila District. Within the Maroodi Jeex province, they reside in the Gabiley District, in towns such as Tog Wajaale, El Bardale, and Gabiley. Wit ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Music Of Somalia
The Music of the Somali people () is music following the musical styles, techniques and sounds of the Somali people. Overview Traditional Somali music Somali people have a rich musical heritage centered on traditional Somali folklore. Somali songs are pentatonic. That is, they only use five pitches per octave in contrast to a heptatonic (seven note) scale such as the major scale. At first listen, Somali music might be mistaken for the sounds of nearby regions such as Oromo in Ethiopia, Sudan or the Arabian peninsula, but it is ultimately recognizable by its own unique tunes and styles. Somali songs are usually the product of collaboration between lyricists (''lahamiste''), songwriters (''abwaan''), and vocalists (''odka'' or "voice").Abdullahi, pp.170-171 The Somali word for dance is ''ciyaar''. Traditional instruments prominently featured in the music of Somaliland include the oud lute (''kaban''). It is often accompanied by small drums and a reed flute in the background ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Dire Dawa
Dire Dawa ( am, ድሬዳዋ, om, Dirree Dhawaa, 3=Place of Remedy; so, Diridhaba, meaning "where Dir hit his spear into the ground" or "The true Dir", ar, ديري داوا,) is a city in eastern Ethiopia near the Oromia and Somali Region border and one of two chartered cities in Ethiopia (the other being Addis Ababa, the capital). Dire Dawa alongside present-day Sitti Zone were apart of the Dire Dawa autonomous region stipulated in the 1987 Ethiopian Constitution until 1993 when it was split by the federal government into a separately administered chartered city. This was due to the ongoing clashes between the OLF and IGLF and prevented any further escalation. It is divided administratively into two woredas, the city proper and the non-urban woreda of Gurgura. Dire Dawa lies in the eastern part of the nation, on the Dechatu River, at the foot of a ring of cliffs. The western outskirts of the city lie on the Gorro River, a tributary of the Dechatu River. It is ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Somali Culture
The culture of Somalia is an amalgamation of traditions in that were developed independently since the Proto-Somali era. The hypernym of the term ''Somali'' from a geopolitical sense is ''Horner'' and from an ethnic sense, it is '' Cushite''. Overview The cultural diffusion of Somali commercial enterprise can be detected in its exotic cuisine, which contains Southeast Asian influences. Due to the Somali people's for and facility with poetry, Somalia has often been referred to as a "Nation of Poets" and a "Nation of Bards", as, for example, by the Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence. Somalis have a story-telling tradition. According to Canadian novelist and scholar Margaret Laurence, who originally coined the term "Nation of Poets" to describe the Somali Peninsular, the Eidagale clan were viewed as "the recognized experts in the composition of poetry" by their fellow Somali contemporaries: Among the tribes, the Eidagalla are the recognized experts in the composition of poetry. O ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Poetic Forms
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poetry, the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese ''Shijing'', as well as religious hymns (the Sanskrit ''R ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Ethnopoetics
Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances (i.e. verbal lore) that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas (instead of prose paragraphs) to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. The goal of any ethnopoetic text is to show how the techniques of unique oral performers enhance the aesthetic value of their performances within their specific cultural contexts. Major contributors to ethnopoetic theory include Jerome Rothenberg, Dennis Tedlock, and Dell Hymes. Ethnopoetics is considered a subfield of ethnology, anthropology, folkloristics, stylistics, linguistics, literature and translation studies. A need for ethnopoetics: Rothenberg Jerome Rothenberg coined the term ethnopoetics in the 1960s. According to Catherine S. Quick, Rothenberg had recognized that “most translations of Native American oral traditions . . . failed to capture the power and beauty of the oral perfo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Djiboutian Culture
The culture of the Republic of Djibouti is diverse, due to the nation's Red Sea location at a crossroads of trade and commerce. Djiboutian population is divided into several human components: the Afars and the Dir (clan) Somali people, the Muslim religion for the most part, that are traditionally attached to anthropological group Hamitic. They were called "Hamites Orientals" to distinguish them from these other Hamites that are Egyptians and Berbers. An important Arab community of Yemeni origin, is also based in Djibouti. The Afars and the Issa Somalis who are characterized by slender physique, regular features, and proud bearing, they speak different Cushitic languages from the great Afroasiatic language family, and traditionally lived as nomadic pastoralists. However, the population tends to settle because today more than half of its citizens live in the capital and the towns and villages of the interior. This land, traditional crossing point between Egypt, Sudan and Saudi cr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]