the hum / By Bob Doran

Music for the People

Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, plus Third World, The Nightcats and some transcendental electronica

(June 11, 2009)  The title track of the Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars record boils it down: “Living like a refugee is not easy.”

That’s an understatement, especially when you look at the life of someone like the group’s young rapper/drummer, who calls himself Black Nature. He’s no longer a refugee, in fact he’s currently living in San Francisco working on an exciting new project, but he took time to relate the story of how he left his home in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and narrowly avoided life as a child soldier.

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“Basically, it started when the rebels took over the city where I was living with my family. My dad got killed in front of me and I had to be with the rebels for a little while,” he recalled. He’s not sure how old he was at the time. “I wasn’t keeping track of my age because it was a difficult time for me, but I guess I was around 11 or 12.

“I had the opportunity to escape from the rebels and traveled on foot for weeks and weeks in the bush, just trying to find my way. I finally found myself in the neighboring country, Guinea. I had never been there, and did not know where I was going, but I found myself at the border.”

Arrested while crossing into Guinea, he was thrown in jail, then sent to a refugee camp where he says, “They did not treat us like human beings… We lived in tents and had to sleep on the floor on mats; there were insects and scorpions and animals. In the daytime it was hot as hell, and a lot of people lost their lives because it was so cold at night.”

Things improved when he met Reuben Koroma, a teacher at one of the camps who’d managed to bring in a guitar.

“He’d met an old guy called Franco [Francis Lamgba] and they played music together, playing music from the country,” mixing African styles like the jazzy Sierra Leone gumbe with reggae. Black Nature became the drummer playing a homemade drum kit and the band became something like a family. “They embraced me and gave me work to do and food to eat. I became like a son to them,” he said.

The band stood out in camp; they provided respite. “People would come around when they heard the guitar sound. The music would let the people forget their trouble and trauma and interact and dance.”

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