by Les Pearson
Emmanuel Kembe Sings South Sudan's Revolutionary Reggae
Reggae is happy music. Its clean harmonies and bright melodies reverberate to that strong, vibrant, rhythm. Reggae is roots music and it is the folk music of the Caribbean. From its inception, it has been music laced with irony. Remember the sardonic political wit of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer?
Enter Emmanuel Kembe, a Sudanese reggae artist. The first irony is that someone from Sudan does reggae so well!
David Gue helped me understand the paradox. David worked with CUSO in Sierra Leone in the late sixties. It was at that time that Desmond Decker & the Aces, Jamaican reggae stars, had songs that were sweeping West Africa. David particularly remembers Decker's famous Poor Me Israelite playing everywhere in West Africa. That generation of African musicians cross-pollinated local rhythms with amplified Caribbean guitar melodies. In fact, reggae's African transmutation was a first signal of the emerging World Music scene.
Another second striking irony is that Kembe's bright, happy, tunes are meant to foment a revolution in his homeland.
Last weekend I met Kembe at St. Mary's Parish Hall in Brooks. His political and folk music roots are deep in the Christian south of Sudan. You know Sudan. It is the country that Talisman Resources of Calgary was shamed into leaving this year. The oil company's profitable enterprise helped to fund an Islamic government's war against its own people.
Emmanuel Kembe escaped his homeland, barely. Two million of his Christian countrymen were not so fortunate.
As a political protester and a Sudanese folk music hero, Kembe was a government target. In 1994, while performing at the Khartoum International Festival of Music, he was arrested. After spending 99 days in jail, he escaped custody and made his way to the American embassy in Ethiopia. He now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, as a landed emigrant but "not as a musician." Until now, his performances have been limited to American festivals near his home.
Brooks was a special exception. This southern Alberta community is home to 1,400 fellow Sudanese refugees. They sponsored his Brooks concert as an emotional, musical, souvenir of their homeland. Kembe was, in a sense, singing to the saints. You could read it in their faces. Bodies swayed, arms raised, as Emmanel played guitar and sang to a back-up sound track of tunes from his CD's. He has recorded two --Liberate South Sudan and Shen Shen (Cry for South Sudan).
Most of the crowd knew the words to all his songs. They sang Shen Shen and my favourite, 9-1-1. There is no 9-1-1 in Sudan. No one comes when you need help. There may be genocide and ethnic cleansing. But there is that sense of irony again. In North America police come even when music is too loud.
Emmanuel's words are powerful. He thanks America for restoring his dignity and giving him the opportunity to express what is in him. He laments that "War is not a friend to anyone. People use war to protect interests." But music can change the world. "Music plays all the time. Children sing." His hope is that his songs will create a revolution away from war. And with this thought, he joins the first rank of folk music's finest.