QarAami.
The Fading melody of Somali Classic Music

In the framework of IT GO HAVE TO ADJUST, we cordially invite you to a reading and book presentation with Dr. Jama Musse Jama, which will be accompanied by oud player Alaa Zouiten. The evening will delve deeper into a central topic for our reflections: One of the ports of our journey into the project is Hargeysa in Somaliland, a region steeped in the history of oral storytelling that gave Somali speakers the epithet “Nation of Poets”. Exchanging with our partners, Hargeysa Cultural Center and Fankeena, we understood even more, how resistance against forces of oppression through language and laughter also involves love. In the exhibition at SAVVY, we display an archival selection which centers around Qaraami music. Qaraami, a word in Somali for love, is a lyric-focused music genre mostly accompanied by the oud, vocals and drumming. Numerous songmakers use the music genre to also speak about issues like political injustice.

The etymology of the word is garam, from the Arabic word love and Somalis use it to describe the oldest modern musical composition of Somaliland, mainly from the 1940s to the mid-1960s. The word Qaraami became synonymous with "old-time music". Qaraami can be classified for Somali culture as classical music, and for modern Somali literature, the Quraami era remains an extraordinary period, in which musical production, rooted in typical traditional pastoral folk dance, blends with the effects of urbanization in cities. The melodies produced in that era of classical works are those that have stood the test of time and underlined the fundamental foundations of modern Somali song production, in other words, Oaraami songs must be classified as classical. The book includes the first ever transcribed musical notations for Qaraami melodies: Beerdillaacshe, Carwo, Murug, Nugul and Aroor.

Dr Jama Musse Jama is an ethno-mathematician with a PhD in African Studies specialising in Computational Linguistics of African Languages. His current research focuses on the role of heritage, art and culture in the development and state formation, including settlements and cities expansion in Somaliland. Founder and yearly organizer of the influential Hargeysa International Book Fair, and currently Director of the Hargeysa Cultural Centre in Somaliland, Dr. Jama has also a Research Associate position at DPU, University College London, UK. He is a fellow of RVI and a 2023 Associate senior researcher at Italian's National Research Council at Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale “Antonio Zampolli” (CNR-ILC).

Alaa Zouiten was born in Casablanca, Morocco. There he began his musical career as a master on the oud. Carrying the heritage of both classical Arabic music and traditional Moroccan music, Alaa has found a home in the metropolis of Berlin. Working with musicians from diverse backgrounds, he has made it his mission to create a modern soundscape inspired by all the world's musical traditions, where there is no hierarchy of styles or cultures. The oud speaks different musical languages and only the beauty of the music counts.