R.I.P. Shiikh Cabdi (Iftin's Guitarist)

Cabdi Cabdullaahi Maxamed ("Shiikh Cabdi") sadly passed away a few weeks ago in Denmark, where he's been ill for sometime. He started his career with the band Malkad in Mogadishu in 1973. After a short stint with Bakaaka in Kismaayo, a port city in the South of Somalia, he joined Iftin in 1977 and played on many of their albums till the onset of the civil war in Mogadishu in 1991. With the death of Shiikh Cabdi, Somali music has lost a self-taught, talented, versatile, innovative and intuitive guitarist and a warm, engaging and friendly personality. A.U.N../R.I.P.!

A Monument Has Fallen

I'm deeply saddened by the untimely death of poet Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac "Gaarriye" who passed away yesterday in Norway at the age of 62. My condolences go to his family and friends, as well as to all Somalis for we all have lost an inspiring treasure. Fathomless respect! Alla Ha U Naxariisto! Rest in peace!

A biologist by training, Gaarriye was a highly respected poet. His numerous poems deal with a wide variety of topics - contrasting simple daily life with a complex form of existence beyond/after death, decadent wealth to abject poverty, all-engulfing war to ever-lasting peace, mankind's ugliness to nature's beauty, oppression to resistance, democracy to dictatorship.... and many things in-between.