One of my first purchases after arriving in Niamey was a radio, imported from Nigeria (one of the major centers of manufacturing in West Africa) and labeled in English. It’s interesting to note the seemingly bizarre combination of media types it can play, drawing from several different generations: AM/FM radio, cassette tape, USB (thumb drives; I’m not sure whether it’ll play anything else), and SD memory cards, but no CDs. CDs are not popular here, from what I understand, because they’re not very reliable with all the dust and, if you’re going to play something in the car, they’re no good on bumpy roads. I’ll see what I find when I finally make it to see some of the music vendors this week.
Tuning into Nigerien radio is an interesting study in the country’s past, present, and future. By this I mean you’re able to get a very clear sense of a colonial past with French-language stations, including Radio France International (RFI); past meeting present with traditional music sharing airtime with popular music from Niger, Mali, and elsewhere (including the very popular, extremely auto-tuned Hausa pop from northern Nigeria); the immediate present–the month of Ramadan–represented by several channels featuring Koranic recitation; and a future of increased neo-colonial influence from Europe (in addition to RFI, there’s BBC in the evening), the US (there’s a station that plays American R&B and gospel music), and China (I was totally caught off guard when I discovered a Chinese-language station, and even more blown away to hear the song “Full of Joy” that I’d studied in my Music of Asia class this year).
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Note: As I write this, a tune from Ali Farka Toure’s last album, Savane, has just started playing. He’s a legend here, and apparently when he died in 2005 everyone, whether or not they were Songhai or Malian, were blasting his music from their radios.
Cool idea! It really makes you think about how music can relate to and define location. Would you know what country you were in by merely scanning through radio stations?
I’m guessing that in West Africa it could get pretty confusing at times to figure out what country you’re in just by listening. One of the stations seems to only play Malian popular music, and I actually wonder if it’s a station transmitting from Mali or if it’s broadcasting from Niger for the benefit of Malian refugees in the country.
Thanks, that was awesome!