Ali Abdi Feiruz, known as Ali Feiruz, () was a prominent Somali musician. He belonged to the

Habr Awal The Habr Awal, alternately known as the Zubeyr Awal (, , Full Name: '' Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ash-Ishaaq bin Ahmed, Shaykh Isḥāq ibn Aḥmad)'' is one of the largest subclans of the wider Isaaq clan family, and is further divided into eight su ...

clan of the

Isaaq The Isaaq (, , ''Banu Ishaq'') is a major Somali clans, Somali clan. It is one of the largest Somali clan families in the Horn of Africa, with a large and densely populated traditional territory. The Isaaq people claim in a traditional legend ...

clan family.

Biography

Feiruz was born in 1931 in

Djibouti Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east. The country has an area ...

. He later moved to

Hargeisa Hargeisa ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Somaliland, a ''List of states with limited recognition, de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still considered internationally to be part of Somalia. It is also th ...

Somaliland Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is an List of states with limited recognition, unrecognised country in the Horn of Africa. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, E ...

in the late 1950s, and then on to

Mogadishu Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...

in 1973. Feiruz's career began with Radio Hargeisa in the late 1950s. He was one of the first popular Somali ''kaban'' ( oud) players in the 1950s, and eventually began incorporating modern instruments into his performances in the 1960s, such as the guitar, violin and

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

. A prominent member of the Walaalaha Hargeisa and Hobolada Waaberi musical troupes, Feiruz composed, among other tunes, ''Ilaahayow waa kugu mahad'', a tune whose release coincided with the independence of the former

British Somaliland British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate (), was a protectorate of the United Kingdom in modern Somaliland. It was bordered by Italian Somalia, French Somali Coast and Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia (Italian Ethiopia from 1936 ...

protectorate A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over ...

. As of 2012, this music still serves as the opening theme for the news segment of both '' Radio Mogadishu'' and ''Radio Hargeisa''. Feiruz had a significant influence on newer generations of Somali musicians in the 1960s and 1970s. He died in Djibouti in mid-1994.Radio Mogadishu archive

Notes

References

Fanka Ka Bixi-Maayo, Waxaanu Ku Abuuran Yahay Dhiigayga, Waanan La God-GelayaaInterview with the late Abdullahi Qarshe (1994) at the Residence of Obliqe Carton in Djibouti"Magool: The Inimitable Nightingale of Somali Music," Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies: Vol. 14, Article 5.
1931 births 1994 deaths 20th-century Somalian musicians Djiboutian emigrants Immigrants to Somalia {{Africa-musician-stub

Biography

See also

Notes

References