Salia Koroma’s “Manawa”: The First Recording

A Caricature of Kaiser Wilhelm II In British Propaganda

This is the first recording of the Manawa song, done some two years after the Second World War, according to Salia himself in his 1993 interview.  This early recording is quite obviously a shorter version, edited by the singer to meet the demands of the recording practices of the day. With the advent of cassette tapes, Salia was able to record the full version of the song.

Here, the urgent style of the younger man stands out, as does the movement away from the dirge that was sang by the widows of the Kaiser’s War (The Great War). (But then there’s always a movement away from the plaintiveness of the opening verse across the various recordings of the song.) The urgency in the style of singing could be due to the pressure of having to boil down seven or so minutes of lyrics to just under three minutes. I hope you enjoy this Decca recording.

Salia Koroma: More Than She Bargained For

I shall be writing a post on Salia Koroma and his spoken introductions. For today, though, I’ll limit myself to a specific introduction to a particular song.

The song here is Kpomuma-Jekele. I’ve three versions of this song, one of them without an introduction. In my opinion both introductions are superfluous, as the song (s) by itself/themselves tell the story quite well.  In the introduction I’ve posted, it’s a simple story of a middle-aged wife who gets more than she bargained for when she seeks a co-wife and helper in a young girl. The other introduction presents a story of jealousy.

Kpomuma-Jekele, the sobriquet that the older woman gives the girl, refers to the manner in which the latter sits on the log bench at the farm hut. (Jekele is an adverb that can be roughly translated as daintily. Kpomu is a name specific to a log bench at a farm hut. Ma is a postposition, as we don’t talk about prepositions but postpositions in Mende.) My translation of the title has placed the emphasis on the character of the girl rather than on how she sat.

Sometimes There’re Things You Just Can’t Avoid

I’m going ahead to post another Mende Gendei, albeit this one a live performance. In my previous post I mentioned that he had sung the truncated version before he was asked to perform the longer version with its litany of chiefs. This is that shorter version.

Of his numerous compositions, was Mende Gendei Salia’s favourite “accordion tune”? This is a question that needs asking. If it wasn’t, then

Salia Koroma, Kenema, 1993

it would appear that he put aside any concerns about it being a burden and eventually embraced the popularity of this particular composition.

And of his many compositions, this is the most “textually” consistent across all versions ( and Salia’s compositions are very consistent across versions). Had Salia been a man who could read and write, I’d have arrived at the conclusion that he had written down the text of this song and that he was singing off a piece of paper. (To which he would naturally have responded, “And what white paper is that?”) The one line that is different (perhaps because the audio is better here) is : “The Rice Barn’s end are the Supporting Pillars,” where the others sound like: “The Forest’s end are the Trees.”

Or it could be that I just need to have my hearing checked. Tell me what you hear in the different versions.

Salia Koroma In Conversation II (Talking “Mende Gendei”)

Salia Koroma, Kenema, 1993

There’s a piece in the oeuvre of every artist that is at once a blessing and a curse: a song, a poem, a novel, a painting that somehow manages to be everyone’s favourite. This is the work to which they’re constantly brought back, the one work they’re required, in spite of themselves, to sing, to recite, to read, to comment on, to explicate, to contemplate, every single time. And being regarded as Master and Creator, the artist knows (or senses, at the very least) that the request to revisit “everyone’s favourite” comes with an implied challenge to their creativity. So that at the heart of every request is the need on the part of the artist to defend their work. For Salia Koroma, that work was Mende Gendei.

In the video I’m posting Salia is being asked to perform the long (full?) version of the song. (Earlier in the interview he’d been asked to play the same song and he had obliged with his usual truncated version. And one thing is for sure: you’ll feel cheated until you’ve heard the longer version of Mende Gendei with its litany of Paramount Chiefs that have passed on. It could be that everyone likes to be reminded that vanity is vanity.) Here (for the record), he defends the length of his career and the integrity of his creativity.

Salia Koroma In Conversation

Salia Koroma, Kenema, 1993

The video entitled “Salia Koroma In Conversation” is the first in a series of conversations that Salia had in 1993. This one, like the others that will follow, has been edited for concision.

Aside from revealing how he became an accordionist, this video shows how Salia’s personal story is intimately interwoven with our country’s pre-Protectorate and early Protectorate history. Boboi Kandoh, Salia’s father,  had not only served a good number of pre-Protectorate potentates, but he had had a hand in the construction of the Sierra Leone Railway which was to play such a major role in the opening up of  the country that we know today. We see Kandoh the roving musician as a nationalist, a wordsmith, a defender of old values. We get a sense of the Old World value of filial duty and the fear that accompanies disobedience to one’s parents’ desires and wishes.

Salia Koroma, after eighty years of dedication to the accordion and to the  wishes of a stubborn father, reveals a prediction made so long ago by a paramount chief: that the son would surpass the father. Upon that revelation, Salia becomes reflective, refusing to say any more on the topic. We’re left to wonder what we could’ve learnt if somethings had not been left unsaid, if all had been said.