Somali music: from balwo and heello to Waaberi and the Mogadishu bands

The roots

Before radio, Somali song was work song and dance: songs for watering camels, churning milk and grinding grain, and dances such as dhaanto (Somali literature, Wikipedia, citing Ismaaciil Galaal 1970). The words always came from poetry. In Somali music, the poet is as famous as the singer.

1940s: balwo

The writer Bashir Goth traces modern Somali song to Abdi Sinimo (Abdi Deeqsi Warfaa). In 1943, stranded near Jidhi, he beat an empty kerosene tin like a drum and sang. His short love songs, called balwo, spread fast. The first Balwo Band formed in Borama in 1944 (Bashir Goth, "Somali music through the ages", Music In Africa).

Some elders opposed the new music. Young people embraced it (Geeska, 2025).

Radio Hargeisa and the heello

Radio Hargeisa began in 1941 as a small 100-watt transmitter. By 1945 it was "Hargeisa, Radio Somali", the first live Somali-language broadcaster. It became the stage for singers and poets (Fathi Jama, Geeska, 18 October 2025).

In the mid-1950s Abdullahi Qarshe co-founded the Walaalo Hargeisa (Hargeisa Brothers) band with Hussein Aw Farah. Qarshe was the first Somali to sing while playing the oud. The band added flute, violin and tambourine, and helped start qaraami love songs (Music In Africa). In 1955 the group Bons Bras staged the first modern Somali play, Abiido (same).

The heello song form carried the call for independence. The scholar John William Johnson called the patriotic song "Jowhara Luul" a kind of anthem for the public (Music In Africa, citing Johnson; Johnson, Heelloy: Modern Poetry and Songs of the Somali, 1996). Qarshe later composed "Qolobaa Calankeed", today's national anthem.

The Mogadishu golden age: 1970s and 1980s

• Waaberi, the group of Radio Mogadishu and the National Theatre, gathered the best singers of the day, including Magool, Saado Cali and Xasan Aadan Samatar. Waaberi performed at FESTAC '77 in Lagos (Music In Africa).
• Iftin, first the Education Ministry's band, went private in the early 1980s and played at the Al-Uruba hotel.
• Dur-Dur Band and Shareero mixed Somali song with funk, jazz, reggae and Arab music in Mogadishu's clubs.

In 2017 the label Ostinato Records released Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa, drawn from surviving tapes. It was nominated for a Grammy (Quartz; Afropop Worldwide review, 2017).

The war years and the keepers

The collapse of the state in 1991 scattered musicians across the world (Music In Africa). Staff at Radio Hargeisa and Radio Mogadishu hid tapes at great risk. Maryam Omar Ali digitised more than 9,000 songs and plays and gave them to Amoud University in Borama (same). A re-formed Dur-Dur Band Int. now plays for Somali audiences in London (Dur-Dur Band Int.).

Why it matters

For eighty years Somali songs have carried the same message across clans and borders. They spoke of love, of the land and of one nation. That shared music is part of what makes Somalis one people. See Somali poetry.