31 f Refugee Extroverts
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars were a crowd pleaser at this year’s Womad. Jon Lusk hears their background.
choice to headline Celebrating Sanctuary, London’s annual festival showcasing music by refugees. Sadly, ‘visa problems’ meant they didn’t make it to this year’s midsummer event by the Thames. Even so, six weeks later, there was another chance to catch their life-affirming mix of styles at Womad in Wiltshire.
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Programmed into an early Sunday afternoon set on the main stage, they manage to hold the attention of a possibly hungover audience with a pleasantly democratic show, sporting natty tie-died tops and trousers of mottled maroon, orange, blue and yellow. Their youthful
ith a solid and engaging second album newly under their belts, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars seemed like an obvious and fitting
and athletic percussionist and ragga ‘toaster’ Black Nature shares lead vocals with the lean, care-weathered presence of Mohamed ‘Makengo’ Kamara, and their more playful leader Reuben M. Koroma, who introduces all eight members with equal respect.
“Our music entertains, and at the same time, it educates,” he declares, after leading them through Soda Soap, an old favourite, which he explains is an exam- ple of gumbay music from Sierra Leone. Then, on the charging old school reggae of Jah Come Down, he sings: “Dem took my people away into slavery/ Dem beat them to work like machines, Oh God!”, making an anguished gesture with his hand and raising his eyes to the sky. While on a superficial level, they may fit com- fortably into the ‘Afro boogie band’ cate-
gory that propels the bulk of world music festivals, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars’ history means there is always a serious message in their music.
Backstage after the show, I meet Reuben and Black Nature (a.k.a. Alhaji Jeffrey Kamara), who at just 24, is the group’s youngest member. He speaks with an American accent picked up through living in San Francisco for the past four years, and is surprisingly shy and deferential in Reuben’s company – an amusing contrast with his extrovert on- stage antics. Reuben’s deceptively laid- back speaking voice and gentle manner belie a steely resolve, but his occasional tendency to talk over or interrupt his pro- tégé leaves little doubt about who’s in charge – the man whose own band nick- name is, after all, ‘Jah Lord’.
Photo: Judith Burrows
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