Garissa quartet takes the world by storm

Gargar in concert at Babel Med Festival in Marseille, France on 22 March 2014. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • The all-female Somali group has broken new cultural ground since coming to the limelight in 2008.

A group of women singers from the Somali community in Kenya has just been honoured at two of the leading world music events in Europe.

Gargar, a group of four women from Garissa received the Orange Award - one of six honours to given to “exceptional world music artists” by the Babel Med Music festival in Marseilles, France.

Last year, renowned artists like Rokia Traore of Mali and rising Congolese star Baloji were winners of the festival awards in Marseille, France’s second city, which prides itself as the World Music capital of Europe.

Every year, the festival brings together musicians from different parts if the world playing everything from traditional repertoire to the latest international urban music.

For three days last week, artists and professionals involved in world music met in the French city for the 10th edition of the Babel Med Music Festival.

The attendance at the festival was estimated at 15,000 people with a programme of over 30 concerts from more than 45 countries on three performance stages.

The forum is widely recognised as one of the best in world music and its setting at the heart of the Mediterranean just adds to the appeal.

The event is also a marketplace forum with 275 organisations setting up stands and more than 2,500 professionals from 60 countries in attendance.

Gargar performed at the main festival stage along with stars like Bassekou Kouyata, the electric griot of Mali and Jamaican acoustic reggae singer Clinton Fearon, famous as a member of the group The Gladiators.

The group’s spokesperson and lead singer Luli Bashir says the quality of light and sound gave them confidence on stage and singing with head microphones allowed them to dance and express themselves without the burden of holding the mic.

A Mauritian producer, Percy Yiptong who is managing the trip says it was a superb show for a group with limited international exposure. The crowd and professionals from the Babel Med Music Market made enquiries about the group’s music.

Yiptong discovered Gargar through a project called Equation Musique formed in 2008 and funded by the French institution Cultures France to strengthen Africa’s music industries to compete with the rest of the world.

The Dutch company, Xango Music, is already working on a deal to distribute Gargar’s debut album “Garissa Express” The quartet has also been nominated for the World Music Award at the Couleurs du Monde festival, in Brittany, north west of France.

When we spoke to the ladies of the group last week, they were living in a rented house in Britanny with hired sound equipment and a makeshift rehearsing studio before their second round of concerts in France. Their only grouse was with the weather but they were in high spirits.

Gargar has broken new cultural ground since coming to attention through The Spotlight on Kenyan Music project in 2008. The name of the group is taken from a Somali word meaning “joining or bringing together” which resonates with their stated aim of maintaining their Somali identity while bringing women to the cultural forefront in what is largely a male dominated society.

When they first came together in 2003 to form a women’s self-help group that would empower the community through music and other forms of art, they chose the name Bismillahi Gargar, which has since been shortened to just Gargar.

In 2008, the group was chosen as one of the finalists in the Spotlight on Kenyan Music and their song Aids Wadilla (Aids Kills!) was recorded for the project’s compilation album that year.

The women spent the next two years recording the album Garissa Express at the Ketebul Studios in Nairobi. An interesting title considering the number of hours they spent on bus trips between their hometown and Nairobi during the recording sessions.

The album contains traditional Somali songs arranged and recorded with contemporary instrumentation with a variety of styles, from funk to reggae.

After the launch in 2010, they first received international exposure the following year with performances at festivals in Zimbabwe, South Africa and an appearance at the renowned Sauti za Busara Festival in Zanzibar.

Not even in their wildest dreams, would the women of Gargar have imagined that their music, that started as a little community project in Garissa would propel the group to the heights of world music.

It is difficult to predict just how much further Gargar can take their unique blend of traditional Somali music and contemporary rhythms.

What is for sure is that everything looks very promising at the moment for the Garissa women.

This article was first published in the Business Daily .