The coastal city of Majunga, Madagascar, where Sammy Rastafanahy spent his boyhood, is a hotbed of the high-energy, African influenced pop music called salegy. So music was already a big part of his life when Sammy moved to the capital Antananarivo to attend high school in the late 1970s. He was writing songs about things he saw around him, but his main claim to fame in those days was as a dancer. Sammy started out dancing to traditional music from Mozambique, across the water, but before long, he became a champion rock 'n roll dancer.

In the early '80s, Sammy went abroad to study in Moscow. He recalls a teacher there asking him, "Sammy, why are you going to school? You have to sing." He did in fact sing often at parties in Russia, and when he returned to Tana in the early '90s, he worked hard at writing songs. He formed his first real band in 1994, but given the difficulty of getting music recorded in Madagascar, it took him some years to actually release his first cassette, Reggae Feombahoaka.

When he did get the chance to record, Sammy's producer Percy Yip Tong (who had recently moved to Madagascar from Mauritius) invested all the money he could find and hired the best musicians, including Toty on bass, ace salegy guitarist Jean-Brice, one of Madagascar's most celebrated saxophonist/flautists Seta, and the incomparable traditional musician Rajery on the tubular harp, the valiha. Sammy told Afropop, "I have to use the valiha because it's the roots of the Malagasy people, and salegy because I'm from the north. And then I mix in the reggae because I'm a rastaman." The cassette is an adventurous blend of styles and sounds, quite unlike anything else out there. Especially interesting is the way the band marries salegy and reggae rhythms.

"I sing about small people," says Sammy. His debut recording contains songs about kids who forego schooling to beg on the streets, about mob justice, about the struggle of Malagasy workers to support their families on diminishing salaries, and about the way young people are losing respect for their elders.

Despite the odds, Sammy is determined to press on and create new music, next time incorporating the music of southern Madagascar as well. Sammy Rastafanahy's music is not yet available outside Madagascar, but Afropop is convinced that it's just a matter of time…

You can contact Sammy at:
Raharisoa.samuel@caramail.com
Phone: +261-33-12-26568

Contributed by: Banning Eyre