Africa Is a Country

Weekend Music Break No.105 – Songs from banned countries: Somalia edition

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Weekend Music Break No.105 – Songs from banned countries: Somalia edition

By
Africa is a Country

Chino'o from Malitia MaliMob

For this weekend’s music break, we’ll have a second edition of “Songs from banned countries.” This time we go to Somalia via Seattle — which is a fitting connection because the judge who ordered Trump’s country ban illegal is based in Seattle. So, in the spirit of The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s opposition to Trump’s xenophobic policy, we are proud to present Malitia MaliMob and their selection for “Songs from banned countries: Somalia edition.”

On this edition of “Songs from banned countries,” we decided to give you the ins & outs of Somali music, culture and lifestyle. We, Malitia MaliMob, are Somali-Americans who fled a civil war, and came to Seattle where we became a product of our environment. The selection of songs we have chosen intertwine both cultures — something that might be seen as taboo by some in our community — however, even though we are now Americans, it is important for us to maintain the culture of the land where we were born.

This past month, the administration of President Donald Trump decided that Somali people should not be allowed to enter the United States. In contrast to this regression, back home in Somalia our people have answered with progress. That is because this past Wednesday, February 8th, we elected our new President Mohamed Farmaajo. For the first time in nearly 30 years, Somali people have realized that we need each other more than ever, and that we have to work together for a better future for Somalia.

In our selection of songs and videos, we included clips that show traditional music, as well as the rebuilding of infrastructure in Somalia. We want to show the beauty in our culture & what we have to offer the world. We want to show that contrary to what many people outside of Somalia perceive, our country is full of life.

Somali National Anthem (somali museum)

Malitia Malimob – “Perception”

Somali infrastructure

Malitia Malimob – “Physical World”

DIRGAAX – “JIGJIGA Dhaanto”

Malitia Malimob – “Wake up call”

illkacase- “Isqabooji”

K’naan – “Soobax”

Malitia Malimob – “Mayflower”

Malitia Malimob – “I am James Foley”

Further Reading

On Safari

On our annual publishing break, Gaza’s genocide continues to unfold in real time yet slips from public grasp. This is not just a crisis of politics, but of how reality is mediated—and why we must build spaces where meaning can still take root.

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.