Lidwien Kapteijns is a professor of history at Wellesley College. A few years ago, she contacted Afropop Worldwide
to say she was a co-trustee of a large collection of rarely heard songs
from Somalia. These songs date from between about 1955, when the
country was approaching independence, and 1990, when it was
disintegrating into a devastating period of civil conflict. Professor
Kapteijns said that the love songs in particular in this collection
reveal a now-hidden chapter in Somali history, a time when the country
was actively searching for a way to balance old tradition and culture
with the coming wave of modernity. Kapteijns provides the principle
voice in the resulting Afropop program, Reconstructing Somalia: Love Songs at the Birth of A Nation. Afropop’s Banning Eyre braved a February snowstorm to visit Kapteijns in her office at Wellesley. Here’s their conversation. Read on
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Reconstructing Somalia: Love Songs at the Birth of a Nation -Lidwien Kapteijns (Ladan)
Lidwien Kapteijns is a professor of history at Wellesley College. A few years ago, she contacted Afropop Worldwide
to say she was a co-trustee of a large collection of rarely heard songs
from Somalia. These songs date from between about 1955, when the
country was approaching independence, and 1990, when it was
disintegrating into a devastating period of civil conflict. Professor
Kapteijns said that the love songs in particular in this collection
reveal a now-hidden chapter in Somali history, a time when the country
was actively searching for a way to balance old tradition and culture
with the coming wave of modernity. Kapteijns provides the principle
voice in the resulting Afropop program, Reconstructing Somalia: Love Songs at the Birth of A Nation. Afropop’s Banning Eyre braved a February snowstorm to visit Kapteijns in her office at Wellesley. Here’s their conversation. Read on
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