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US Jordanian contestant Farah Abu Adeela from the state of Illinois was crowned Miss Arab USA at the beauty pageant’s finale in Arizona over the weekend.
The new Miss Arab USA, who is a model, takes over from 2022’s winner, Moroccan American Marwa Lahlou.
The annual pageant, which returned in 2022 after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held in Arizona this year. Produced by The Arab American Organization (AAO), the pageant is “founded on the basis of advancing the cause of young ladies of Arab descent,” according to its website.
The swimsuit category does not feature in the pageant, with the stated aim of organizers being to “select an honorable Arab young lady to represent our culture in the US and worldwide for one year.”
This year’s ceremony featured a performance by dance troupe Zeffa of Phoenix.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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Farah Abu Adeela nabbed the coveted tiara at the 2023 Miss Arab USA pageant. (Instagram)
Fady Dagher is the first minority-background officer to head Canada’s second-largest force.
A map of Lebanon hangs in Chief Fady Dagher’s office in the grey stone headquarters of Montreal’s police force. It is a constant reminder of where he is from and the place he hopes to return to.
“For me, it helps me to stay connected to my roots and not to forget where I come from,” Mr Dagher said.
The 55-year-old Lebanese-Canadian officer, who moved to Canada when he was 17, is the first person from a minority background to lead Montreal police in the force’s nearly 200-year history.
His appointment in January was the culmination of a lifetime of service to his adopted homeland.
“I always felt I had a debt to the Montreal community,” Mr Dagher told The National. “They welcomed me so well and it was a duty for me to serve them.”
Softly spoken with a slightly gravelly voice, Mr Dagher said that when he came to Canada in 1985 his original plan was to go to university and then return to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, where his father ran a manufacturing company. But a chance encounter with a police officer drew him to a different life, despite strong opposition from his father.
“Oh my God, he lost it,” Mr Dagher recalled with a chuckle.
Not even an unplanned trip from his beloved father could dissuade Mr Dagher from pursuing a career in law enforcement.
“I didn’t see my father from 1985 to 1991 and he came right away to discourage me.”
While policing may not have held the same allure and status in Lebanon and Ivory Coast as it did in Canada, Mr Dagher has brought the values of both places to his role leading Montreal’s nearly 5,000 officers.
“In Lebanon and Africa, we really have the community spirit deep in us and in the police, if you don’t have the community spirit, you cannot be close to the community and you cannot find your resolve to apply the law,” he said.
Mr Dagher has championed a community approach that involves immersing officers in the neighbourhoods they patrol.
The police chief leads by example. Earlier this year, he spent five days living and sleeping at various Montreal homeless shelters to better understand the struggles faced by the city’s homeless population.
“There is no way you can lead without walking the talk,” Mr Dagher said.
At the heart of his approach to policing is a Lebanese ethos.
“I want to be able to be inside those houses, sit with them, cook with them, clean with them, eat with them and see what their stories are,” he said.
He is hoping he can help to transform a police force that is facing a severe shortage of personnel and a city grappling with a sharp rise in gun violence.
Mr Dagher estimated that the force is 20 per cent to 30 per cent short of the officers it needs. A huge part of his first few months on the job has been to go on a charm offensive trying to attract new recruits.
“That’s my first priority,” he said. “To be able to recruit and to keep the recruit is huge.”
He’s looking at immigrant communities and hoping his own career can help new Canadians see a potential future in the ranks of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal.
Like many cities across North America, Montreal recorded a sharp increase in violent crime during the pandemic, a trend that continued in 2022.
Mr Dagher said the force was actively looking at ways to reverse that trend and was optimistic it would.
In terms of gun violence, “last year was the worst year that we went through”, he said, but noted that since he took over in January gun violence appears to be down, a trend he hopes will continue through to the end of the year.
Mr Dagher, who signed a seven-year contract, is determined to help recharge the department, but he dreams of having one more professional act after he retires.
“I am hoping that one day I will finish my career as ambassador of Canada in Lebanon, so I can go back to where I come from,” he said.
It would be the cherry on top of an exceptional life and allow Mr Dagher to spend time closer to his ancestral village of Bikfaya in the Mount Lebanon region.
Even while he is busy leading Canada’s second-largest police force, his mind and heart are never far from the small Mediterranean country that generations of Daghers have called home.
Throughout his busy career, he said, Lebanon has always held a restorative power.
“Every time I go back to Lebanon my heart beats better, again and again. My heart is in good health when I go to Lebanon because I feel welcomed,” he said.
The newly established restoration center at the King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh has succeeded in preserving more than 3,000 rare scientific materials of cultural heritage. This includes photographs, documents, maps and rare books, as well as manuscripts.
The center was able to restore rare images depicting the old city of Diriyah, showcasing its location surrounded by a sea of palm trees.
The center restored 415 rare images of the city of Jeddah. The team of experts were also able to also restore 117 rare books, including their leather covers and internal pages.
In addition, the center restored a group of Saudi currencies, issued on 14 Dhu Al-Qa’da 1372 AH, corresponding to July 25, 1953 AD, when the Saudi Monetary Agency issued what was then known as the “receipts of pilgrims.” These were lightweight banknotes distributed and used during Hajj, starting at ten Riyals, of which 5,000 were printed with phrases in both Arabic and English.
The restoration center rehabilitated more than 615 rare documents and restored a series of rare magazines.
The center also cleaned up 2,235 rare and valuable maps in preparation for their restoration and preservation. The most notable was a map of the continent of Africa and the Arabian peninsula, drawn by Abraham Ortelius in 1570 AD.
The restoration center was inaugurated in late 2022, and has served as a space to handle artifacts carefully. Careful consideration is given to each item to maintain and preserve these pieces of history for future generations.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomed on Wednesday the heads of delegations participating in a summit of Gulf Cooperation Council and Central Asian countries.
Participants in the Jeddah summit include the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
From the GCC side, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Crown Prince of Kuwait Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Vice President of the UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid are attending.
Oman and Bahrain’s rulers are being represented by Sayyid Asaad bin Tariq Al-Said and Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Khalifa respectively.
Sheikh Nasser praised the active role played by the Kingdom in enhancing cooperation and coordination among GCC countries and consolidating friendship and joint cooperation with other countries.
A report by the Financial Times has said that the country’s sovereign wealth fund, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), has taken a stake in the owner of Washington’s professional basketball and hockey teams in US sport.
As per the report, the fund is paying $200mn for a 5% stake in Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE) in a deal that values the owner of the National Basketball Association’s Washington Wizards, the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Washington Mystics and the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals at $4.05bn.
The report also mentions that the investment from QIA, at an estimated $450bn in assets, comes less than a year after the NBA amended its bylaws to allow sovereign wealth funds to invest in clubs.
The QIA said, “As one of the largest integrated sports and entertainment companies in the country, MSE’s platform provides unique opportunities and scalability for growth and partnerships”.
As per the report, people familiar with the Monumental deal said that the QIA was taking a stake in the group as a financial transaction to gain exposure to a company with a diverse range of assets. As per reports, QIA will not gain board representation as part of the transaction.
While winning an Olympic medal is a personal goal for thousands of athletes, for 24 nations it is a dream that has only ever come true once. Tokyo2020.org looks at the glorious moment and the impact it had on the lives of the athletes who achieved it.
The background
Sudan made its Olympic debut at Rome 1960 and since then the country has participated in most of the Olympic Games.
Despite its nearly 50 years of participation in the Olympics, Sudan’s first medal on the world’s greatest sporting stage didn’t come until Beijing 2008, when Ismail Ahmed Ismail won silver in the men’s 800m.
Born in a Darfur farming tribe, Ismail was introduced to athletics at school. Surprisingly, instead of 800m, he started as a 3,000m runner and participated in 1,500m races as well. After watching his performance in long-distance races, the then national athletics coach Omer Khalifa advised him to move down to 800m. So he did and went to win the National Junior Championships.
In 2002, Ismail participated in the World Junior Championships in Kingston, Jamaica and finished fifth in a time of 1:47.20. Two years later, he had his first Olympic experience at Athens 2004, where he made to the 800m final after a personal best in the semi-final. But he would go on to finish last in the final.
In an interview with IAAF in 2008, Ismail explained that he was not optimistic at the prospect of winning at the Games and was exhausted in the final.
“I just wanted to do my best,” he said.
History in the making Al though Ismail continued improving his performance in 800m, since Athens he had been troubled by injuries and only took part in a few races throughout 2007. But he did not allow this setback to seize his dreams on the track.
“I knew I was going to come back. My coach (Jama Aden) was the one talking to me. I ran in the African Championships (2008, in Addis) and I was 2nd. I know I can do it again,” he said in the IAAF interview.
Somali-born Jama Aden is an Olympian himself and had coached Abdi Bile to a world title in 1987. He saw great potential in Sudanese runners like Ismail.
Aden’s confidence became a driving force behind the athletes, who trained on a land troubled by conflicts and poverty. According to a report by The Christian Science Monitor back in 2008, Ismail and his teammates had to use old paint cans filled with concrete for weight training and would run at the track at the never-completed athletics stadium surrounded by rubble. They also had to finish training before sunset as there were no floodlights.
Thanks to a rebound in early 2008, Ismail made it to Beijing 2008 together with another home favourite Abubaker Kaki, who ran a world junior 800m record of 1:42.79 at the Oslo Bislett Games in June 2008.
But a small injury stopped Kaki in the 800m semi-final in Beijing with Ismail making the final. This time, he did not let the chance go.
Placed at lane eight, Ismail had a relatively slow start but then he sped up on the second lap to pass reigning world champion Alfred Yego of Kenya. He kept the momentum until the finish line to finish behind Wilfred Bungei of Kenya. Clocking 1:44.70, he won Sudan’s long-awaited Olympic medal, a silver.
Life-changing impact
Ismail’s historic win in Beijing has another huge significance on the world outside sport. His success came in a time when Sudan was facing an unprecedented political crisis. To him and his teammate, Beijing was a chance to show people the positive side of Sudan.
After securing the country’s first Olympic medal, according to AP, people in Sudan hailed Ismail as a national hero and the picture of him wrapped in a Sudanese flag landed him on the front pages of the country’s newspapers.
Quoted by the Sudan Media Centre, Ismail said, “I can’t find words to express my joy. This is an achievement for my country first and then for me. I was able to achieve this honour because of a lot of hard training.”
With his achievement at the Beijing 2008 Games saw Ismail became the flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony of London 2012. However, in London he failed to make the 800m final.
At Rio 2016, no Sudanese athlete participated in the men’s 800m.
Scrolling through Sudan’s Olympic record, one could easily notice that athletics has been their major field of competition. Among the 81 Olympic participants, 33 of them are in athletics, followed by 17 in boxing. With Ismail’s historic breakthrough, there is a fair reason to expect Sudanese athletes to mark another milestone in the future.
Egyptian-Scottish classical duo the Ayoub Sisters are scheduled to perform at King Charles III’s coronation in Edinburgh on Wednesday.
“We are delighted to share that we have been invited by HM King Charles III to perform at his coronation in Edinburgh next week,” wrote the Ayoub Sisters on Facebook on Saturday.
“The ceremony is part of Royal Week, with the King and Queen undertaking several engagements in Scotland, and will be broadcast live on BBC One. Tune in on Wednesday 5th July at 1:30pm to watch the celebration unfold,” they added.
The Ayoub Sisters have taken the international music scene by storm since their debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2016. Laura Ayoub plays the violin – performing on an 1810 J. Gagliano – and Sarah Ayoub masters the cello. Both play the piano.
The internationally renowned duo were discovered by producer Mark Ronson.
Their young, albeit sparkling, career has led them to sign a contract with Decca Records, one of the UK’s biggest record labels playing at the BRITS and the BAFTAs. Their album topped the Official Classical Artist Albums Chart.
The duo explore many musical genres, starting from classical music to Scottish traditional repertoire, topping it with captivating arrangements of pop, funk, and world music.
Their virtuosity and creativity have taken them to many prestigious halls in the UK (the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, London Palladium) and the rest of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Competition also had a new category this year for disabled pupils.
An Abu Dhabi pupil was crowned the winner of the UAE Arab Reading Challenge in Dubai on Friday.
Emirati schoolgirl Amna Al Mansouri, who read 128 books during the academic year, took top spot ahead of more than 500,000 pupils.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, praised those who took part.
“Today, the UAE celebrated 514,000 students from state schools who participated in the Arab Reading Challenge – whose Arab and international participation reached 24.8 million students,” he said on Twitter.
“I congratulate Amna Mohammed Al Mansouri, and her family, for coming in first place. Amna read 128 books during the academic year.
“Two years ago, Amna lost the ability to walk, but that did not stop her. She soldiered ahead and sailed across the vast ocean of knowledge and literature. The challenge was the beginning of a life-changing experience.
“Today, Amna can walk once again, she has won the Reading Challenge and has authored two stories.
“She will represent the country in a few days at the International Physics Olympiad in Tokyo.”
Amna took the top prize ahead of Mohammed Al Hammadi and Iman Daoud.
The competition had a new category this year for disabled pupils. Emirati pupil, Ghareeb Al Yamahi, won first place, with Ghaya Zainallah coming in second place.
“I also congratulate the student Gharib Al Yamahi who won first place in the reading challenge in the category of people of determination,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
“Gharib is blind in sight but he is not a stranger in the path of achievement.
“Gharib read 130 books during the academic year in Braille. He is a writer of articles, a speaker and an inspiration to all of us. When a blind person reads 130 books, sighted people should review themselves.
“All the best to Gharib who, with his persistence and willpower, represents the saying that ‘nothing is impossible in the UAE’.”
The ceremony was attended by Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology.
Largest in the world
In May, Sheikh Mohammed said the annual Arab Reading Challenge had become the largest event of its kind in the world.
He said 24.8 million pupils from 46 countries had taken part in this year’s competition.
It was launched in 2015 to encourage a million young people to read at least 50 books in a year.
The challenge usually starts at the beginning of the academic year, around September, and continues until the end of the academic year.
The Arab Reading champion is selected based on the pupil’s ability to articulate general knowledge, critical thinking and communication skills, plus the diversity of books they have selected.
A Syrian schoolgirl who survived a deadly missile attack during the civil war in her country was crowned the Arab Reading Challenge Champion in November.
Sham Al Bakour, who was seven when she was named winner, was only six months old when her family’s car was struck during violence in Aleppo in December 2015.
Her father was killed while she and her mother survived the horrific attack.
She completed a remarkable journey from tragedy to triumph to win words of praise from Sheikh Mohammed.
The young literature lover read 70 books to win the competition.
When asked about what she would do with the Dh1 million ($270,000) prize money, she said she would give it to her mother.
According to the World Bank, the UAE has maintained its place among the list of countries with the highest per capita income based on the Atlas method.
The UAE ranked seventh in the world in terms of per capita national income, according to the latest World Bank data.
The UAE’s per capita income increased by $10,781 from 2021 to $87,729 in July 2022, based on purchasing power parity in current international dollars.
The international dollar is a virtual currency that is used for evaluating the purchasing power of various countries.
It is based on the US dollar, but it has the same purchasing power as each country’s local currency.
According to the World Bank, the UAE has maintained its place among the list of countries with the highest per capita income based on the Atlas method while also using current US dollar prices.
Using the Atlas method, the World Bank breaks down the world’s economies into four income groups: low, lower middle, upper middle and high.
The categorizations are revised annually depending on the previous fiscal year’s per capita income.
The UAE’s per capita national income in current US dollars rose to $48,950 in 2022 from $43,460 in 2021, surpassing the pre-COVID-19 level of $46,210.
The Atlas method, which was developed in its current form in 1989, is used to express gross national income in US dollars.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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The UAE ranked seventh in the world in terms of per capita national income, according to the latest World Bank data. (Shutterstock/File Photo)
Hard truths beneath the exuberant arrangements of the Somalian-British singer-songwriter and activist strike a chord for others uprooted from their homeland.
The small stage at the Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room is bathed in lilac light as an acoustic drummer, a conga percussionist, two guitarists and then a saxophonist and keyboard player take their places.
For a few minutes, a laid-back jam session ensues until the lead singer weaves his way towards the microphone, expertly adjusts the stand and, without preamble, begins the set.
It is opening night of the city’s annual Arab arts festival, and the intimate audience, though it’s a decade since Aar Maanta and the Urban Nomads’ debut UK tour, is in for a rare treat: live Somali music played with instrumental accompaniment.
“Always with a band,” Maanta confirms to The National, “because there has been a cultural tendency to sing with playback music. I wanted something a little more genuine. I just thought: ‘I’ll be strict and do live shows.’
“I did playback one time when I was in my home town in Jijiga and I felt like I was cheating people, you know?” he adds, laughing.
Those gathered are making the most of the opportunity, clapping, bobbing their heads, dancing and singing along with Maanta’s soulful voice, the smooth tones of which a reviewer once aptly described as coloured by “the dusty echo of the desert”.
Midway through the live performance, he introduces a song called Uur Hooyo (Mother’s Womb) written by the oud virtuoso and renowned composer Ahmed “Hudeidi” Ismail Hussein.
“Unfortunately, he passed away in 2020 due to Covid in London,” Maanta tells the audience. “He was my teacher and taught me about music and generally about history, the connections between the Horn of Africa, Yemen and this area. There are so many connections here.”
As Maanta tells me, the gig is packed with significance as the port city welcomed the earliest members of the UK’s now 100,000-strong Somali community in the late 19th century.
Some of those mostly seamen and traders arriving by ship from the former British colony of Aden brought ouds – the short-necked, stringed instrument whose earthy notes are the signature of Somali folk music.
Maanta’s body of work across two albums and an EP is a poetic and, at times, urgent soundtrack of that migrant experience.
Finding his voice
Born Hassan-Nour Sayid in the capital of the Somali Regional State in Eastern Ethiopia, his creative journey began in the home of his auntie in Hargeisa, where he and his two siblings were raised.
“It was a good house,” he says. “Altogether, there were 10 children inside and it was fun. I was well cared for and, because there were so many of us there, I felt like I had many older sisters.”
Though his great-grandfather was Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, the Somali nationalist revered as a skilful oral poet, his maternal aunt was the one responsible for encouraging an early love of the arts.
Looking back, Maanta recalls the rhythms and melodies of the Iftin Band and those of Hudeidi himself emanating from an old transistor in the kitchen to intermingle with the aromas of Mandi, the traditional Yemeni dish of meat and richly spiced rice.
“My auntie used to sing these old Somali songs on the radio, and I would always listen and sing along because I loved the music,” he says.
“Now, this was the Eighties, so radio was very limited. Whenever the radio goes off, she would basically ask me to sing some of her favourite songs again and I would. It was beautiful.”
Though Maanta doesn’t much like talking about it now – “It’s a pretty common story and not a good one,” he has said – he was separated from his brother and sister when taken by an uncle to relocate to London in the late 1980s, on the cusp of the civil war.
“When I first arrived in the UK, I remember how strange it all was. We moved from a big house to a small apartment and the corridors were so tiny.”
Those tighter living conditions, however, were offset by the expansive music options afforded by the multicultural society of his adopted home where the rustic tracks favoured by Maanta’s auntie soon made way for hip-hop and R’n’B.
“I lived in Brixton and when you are younger you don’t realise it was the hood in those days. I remember it was a rough area, but I made plenty of Pakistani and West Indian friends,” he says.
“Then, of course, there was the Brixton Academy, a famous music venue. As a child, I wasn’t allowed to go in but I remember the posters outside of some of my favourite groups like Jodeci and Guy.”
For somewhat different reasons, a famous band from Liverpool featured at that time, too. As a newly arrived pupil in an inner-city primary school, the young Hassan could often be found scribbling words such as: “You think you’ve lost your love, well, I saw her yesterday,” into an exercise book.
“I had a teacher for English support who was amazing. He would say: ‘Right, if you like music then listen to these and write them down.’ He was into The Beatles. There was one song in particular: She Loves You.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,’’ Maanta says with enthusiasm, unconsciously repeating the refrain that took the world by storm in the mid 1960s. “They’re effective. The lyrics show the economy of language and how to structure as well. It’s better, I think, than studying Shakespeare because you learn that sometimes five words are more important than 10 if you know how to use them.
“Literally, music was a weird and easy way of learning.”
Maanta was shy and introverted growing up, which meant a lot of alone time that he used to teach himself the oud and piano in his late teens and early twenties.
His family were disapproving of music as a career so he embarked on a science degree at Sheffield University, but resistance was useless: “If it’s your dream,” he says, “it’s what keeps you alive.”
Averse to the idea of becoming a solo singer, he decided to work with other UK-based Somali artists as a producer and arranger.
But after one artist refused to take part in a function in London in 2001 due to a last-minute financial dispute, Maanta stepped in to perform the planned classic Somali hits.
“I remember how nice it felt to be able to convey a message to an audience from the stage. It gave me the encouragement that I can do this.”
But Maanta, whose professional name combines his nickname (Aar, meaning Lion) and the title of one of his most popular songs (Maanta, or Today), wasn’t planning on being just another vocalist for hire.
Seeking a distinct sound, he composed his own songs for a new generation of Somalis who, seeing live bands from other countries, yearned for the same form of entertainment from their own homeland.
“It’s mostly the same band line-up but, if people are not available, because of logistics and all that, then I go with whatever I can find.
“I just genuinely feel like if you’re gonna perform, you’re gonna perform. If you don’t wanna perform, and you wanna do playback, it’s fine. But live music is meant to be with live instruments.”
Part of the appeal is that expatriates hear their own experiences reflected in the mix. Hiddo & Dahqan, the debut album released under his label Maanta Music, is a revelation for its fluid blend of percolating Somali pop with oud-centred love songs – a genre called Qarami – and the bobbing bass lines of Afro-pop.
Dig beneath the exuberant arrangements, however, and there are some hard truths to be heard. By the time the album came out in 2008, Maanta had been touring regularly across Europe and the US but visa delays and long vetting by immigration officials were making a gruelling schedule more intolerable.
The frustration of being constantly under suspicion is encapsulated brilliantly in the song Deeqa, a popular girls’ name that Maanta translates as “Suffice” but points out that it was also how Somali Airlines, which ceased operating in 1991, became known.
For the music video, a recreation of an interrogation at Heathrow Airport, a tired Maanta is quizzed by officials about his travel plans in scenes that struck a deep chord within and beyond the Somali diaspora.
“I still keep getting messages to this day from all over about how people relate to this song, and it makes me feel so proud of it.
“There was even a barrister in the UK who tweeted how he used that song to train immigration officials on how to not deal with people in this kind of situation,” he says.
Music with purpose
Deeqa proved a turning point for Maanta in harnessing the power of the protest song. He began to infuse more sociopolitical subjects into his lyrics while leveraging his burgeoning profile to raise awareness of issues such as the refugee crisis.
Some of his frustration was particularly channelled into 2016’s Tahriib, or “Dangerous Crossings”, an a cappella piece written after a family member fell victim to human trafficking.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees subsequently reached out to ask him to re-record the song with collaborators including the Somali singer and former refugee Maryam Mursal, the Egyptian musician Hany Adel, and the Ethiopian singer Yeshi Demelash, in a multilingual campaign highlighting the perils of fleeing across the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea from Africa.
Maanta returned to Jijiga in 2015 as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and visited two refugee camps. “The environment was not really new to me. Even for some of us Somalis who didn’t go through this, we know our family experienced those situations,” he says.
“But it was tough to see the young people there. Yes, while they have some facilities like schools and food, they need more than that. They have dreams, they want to go out and achieve things, but they are not able to leave those places.”
Three years later, Maanta took his insights right to the top at a meeting with the then Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
“We spoke about how there are a lot of Somali youths in difficult situations, such as camps in Libya or even forced into slavery,” he recalls.
“I just told him: ‘You guys need to do your job more and help those people.’ ”
No surprises, though, to hear that Maanta’s potent advocacy is not part of a plan to pave a way into the febrile world of Somali political life.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “Politics is generally very toxic and I do feel that African political leaders really don’t have much influence to change things at the moment.”
For the children
It was in Minneapolis rather than Mogadishu where he found an example of inspired leadership. Arriving in the US state of Minnesota in 2021, home to the country’s largest Somali population, Maanta was an artist in residence at The Cedar Cultural Centre for two years.
In a project funded by The Joyce Foundation, the Chicago-based philanthropy organisation, he teamed up with the esteemed poet, playwright and custodian of the Somali language Said Salah to compose and record songs that would become Ubadkaa Mudnaanta Leh (Children Have Priority).
“Myself and Professor Said Saleh didn’t decide to sit there and write the songs – we wanted the kids to share their experiences,” he says of promoting Somali heritage by seeking the lyrics and vocals of children aged five to 15.
“They were so enthusiastic about the whole process mainly because of the Somali language itself. They were curious and excited and that really influenced the way we created the songs.”
Form of creative therapy
The resulting EP is a stirring collection of bilingual offerings from a proud yet sometimes misunderstood community, the centrepiece of which is I Am Part 1 & Welcome to Cedar Riverside, a two-song suite in English that sheds light on the lives of those who live in “Little Mogadishu on the Mississippi”.
Through the album’s recording process, Maanta realised he was providing a form of creative therapy for Somali youth by giving them a platform to voice what they were facing in the West such as being in a minority with a different faith; struggles with their mother tongue; and the politics of the then-President Donald Trump.
“I also met a few kids who were autistic, and I realised how important an issue it was within the Somali community, particularly in the diaspora. One of the songs in the album is sung entirely by an autistic child.”
Some of these compositions were heard live for the first time in The Music Room on Friday, where the 25-degree heat prompted Maanta to half-lament that it’s always “the hottest day” whenever he goes to Liverpool.
After more than three decades in the UK, he has come to prefer the cooler months of autumn to those of summer not least because of their unpredictability.
“It seems like you don’t know what’s to come. Everything’s kind of changing,” he explains.
Maanta seems as mutable as his favourite season, telling The National that he now wants to make working with youth the focus of his future efforts.
“Any artist can make songs with the aim of becoming popular but when you cater for children it leaves a lasting impression, especially when there is a need.
“And when it comes to Somali children, the need is the greatest now because there is nothing really out there to cater for them musically. If your country is struggling, obviously making music for children is not going to be a priority.
“I want to make that change,” he says with a passion that echoes some of the poetry for which Somalia is famed.
As a musician he is already widely regarded as the bridge between the old generation and new, but he just may be about to perform his greatest gig of all.
The Liverpool Arab Arts Festival 2023 continues until July 16. For more information, go to: www.arabartsfestival.com/
