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The Refugee All Stars owes its international career to a documentary film. In 2002, Americans Zach Niles and Banker White were moving through the refugee camps of Guinea looking for musicians to help them dramatize the plight of Liberians and Sierra Leoneans who had fled civil wars back home. Niles and White hit pay dirt when they came upon singer Reuben Koroma and guitarist Francis "Franco" Langba working out a plaintive reggae number called "Living Like a Refugee." In The Refugge All Stars, the resulting and deeply moving film, Reuben and Francis build their collaboration into a punchy, electric band that tours the camps to entertain fellow refugees, returns anxiously to Freetown to test the peace and record an album, and then goes back to the camps to encourage refugees to return home. Fast forward to 2006, and the Refugee All Stars are touring the United States.
Reuben's and Franco's collaboration actually goes back to 1998 in Kalia camp. "I had nothing to do," recalled Reuben. "In the morning, I would go to the center were all the refugees would just be talking. I saw that many people were not happy. I thought: If I start to play music here, people will really feel well." Precisely so, and soon a Canadian NGO provided the band with PA gear so they could tour to other camps and raise spirits there. "Me and Franco," said Reuben, "we were very serious over the matter. At first, my wife was not happy. She didn't want me to go sing in remote places. But I was so stubborn." His wife, Grace, eventually joined the band once she saw how the music was helping to build community in the camps, drawing people to meetings where they could discuss their circumstances and options.
The arrival of the American filmmakers must have seemed a miracle of sorts. "Something strange was happening into our lives," said Reuben, adding that this was their "big chance." The musicians' trust in the filmmakers was instrumental in giving them courage to go back to Freetown, where they might encounter the very torturers and assailants who had driven them out a few years before. "We were so much reluctant to go back," said Reuben, "owing to the kinds of things we saw." Think killings, maimings, and amputations. When the band did return, Reuben reconnected with guitarist/singer Ashade Pearce and other musicians he had worked with before the war, and the Refugee All Stars we see today was complete.
The album Living Like a Refugee compiles 17 songs from the earliest acoustic recordings Niles and White made in the camps to more polished studio productions the band made in Freetown in 2003 and 2004. Warm, tuneful, male vocal harmonies are the strong point here. It's hard not to flash on early tracks by Bob Marley and the Wailers when you hear "Compliments for the Peace" or "Monkey Work," both songs that celebrate the end of hostilities, while observing that the same "greed and immorality" that helped cause the war persist today. "I'm Not a Fool" highlights the rough soulfulness of Ashade Pearce's guitar work and sharp, haunted vocals. But it's a mistake to call this a reggae band. For starters, Reuben pointed out that Sierra Leone's baskeda folk music is close to reggae in sound and spirit. "This music is kind of playful," he told me. "Anytime there is something that is not good for the community, people will make a song of it, and when they are playing the baskeda, they will sing it. If the chief is very bad, they will sing against him, but the chief will not do anything because this is a social time. So people have the chance to speak, to express their grief during that time."
Beyond reggae and baskeda, there is palm wine, the freestyle, celebratory songs associated with the local alcoholic beverage, poyo. Sierra Leone was home to the legendary palm wine troubadour S.E. Rogie, and his signature lilt pervades a number of songs here. We also get gumbe, music brought back from the Americas by slaves who returned to Sierra Leone after slavery ended. "Kele Mani (War is Not Good)" is lively gumbe, animated by bottle and hand drum percussion, a funky-sounding acoustic guitar and a perky bass line, and sung in Mandingo. Among the English vocals are some in Kriol, like "Let We Do We Own," a plea for Sierra Leoneans to play their own music and sing in their own languages. "Pat Malonthone" has a brooding, ritualistic feel and chant vocals. This is an example of gbute vange, a music of the Mende people. "Ya N'Digba," Reuben's tribute to his late and long-suffering mother provides a warmer, 6/8 example of gbute vange.
Among the most simply recorded acoustic numbers is "Garbage to the Showglass," which tells this band's story in stark terms: "They found us in the garbage and put us in a glass case." The band's youngest member, an orphan named Black Nature, delivers a snappy, Krio rap to bring the point home for local listeners. In Freetown toady, the musicians feel safe, though they struggle with poverty, scarcity, and a dire lack of services. The music scene is peopled with local rappers, and a few other bands, although most of them play covers and don't create their own songs. That's one reason these bands languish in obscurity while the Refugee All Stars haunt the freeways of America. "Today you settle, tomorrow you pack," a line from "Refugee Rolling," was the band's mantra during the refugee camp days. Ironically, it's also an apt description of international touring. A change for the better, no doubt, but with so many troubles remaining back home, The Refugee All Stars's musical mission is far from over.
Contributed by Banning Eyre for Afropop Worldwide
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