Ernie's African Odyssey Pt 11 - Comoros

Today is Stage 11 of our African odyssey, and the first of four visits to island nations in the Indian Ocean. If you want to find the Comoros go to the northern tip of Madagascar, head due west towards Mozambique and there they are.

The Union of the Comoros (to give the country its full name) and the Comoros archipelago are not the same thing. Three of the five islands declared independence from France in 1975 but the other two, which together comprise Mayotte, preferred to remain under the yoke of the oppressor. 

For the first twenty years or so after independence the poor Comorians suffered as a result of some appalling behaviour by France, apartheid era South Africa and the man who would be king, Bob Denard. If you are not familiar with the story it is worth reading up on.

Enough of that sort of stuff, on to the music. Compiling this post made last week's post on Chad seem an absolute doddle, but we got there.

When I started this series my collection of Comorian music consisted of two tracks from an album called "Hallé" by a gent called Chébli Msaïdie. When updating my spreadsheet I discovered to my great surprise that I featured the other one way back in February 2011. Despite twelve years of constant questing since I have been able to find out no more about him, but it is only right that he kicks things off.

The Comorian ball really started rolling when I went to Paris last month and I popped into the Montparnasse branch of FNAC. I came away with the their entire Comoros section - a single album, "Le Blues Des Sourds-Muets" by the band Mwezi WaQ, which came out last year.  

It is clear that Mwezi Waq are not fans of the state of the nation. The album is a mixture of songs by Comorian artists from earlier eras who were "silenced" and original material that reflects on "a country where consumerism and the law of probability lead us to believe in the fable of the tamed man". Don't believe the hype, folks.

After that, diligent digging on Bandcamp and the tax-dodging website respectively unearthed Ahamada Smis (just this track) and Ouvoimoja (an album with local guest artists called "Sings 4 Comoros Forests"). As with our old chum Chebli, no further information is available on either of them.

Our last selection may technically be cheating as M'Toro Chamou comes from Mayotte rather than the Comoros. But he sings about revolution in the Comoros islands and his 2016 album goes by the excellent name of "Punk Islands", and that is good enough for me. 

According to a brief bio, Mr Chamou is now based in Réunion which is where "Punk Islands" was recorded. Apparently the album addresses "the chaotic situation on Mayotte and the Comoros, between the influence of neo-colonialism and modernisation on the one hand and losing their cultural identity on the other". It sounds like him and the Mwezi WaQ gang would have a lot to talk about.

"Ulaya" - Chébli Msaïdie

"Ankipwa" - Mwezi WaQ

"La Route" - Ahamada Smis

"Walozi" - Ouvoimoja

"Revolution" - M'Toro Chamou

One of the silenced artists covered by Mewzi WaQ is Boul des Iles, who they described as the jewel of the 1980s folk scene in Comoros. I was pleased to discover that he is still going strong, as you can see in today's first video which was posted in June.