Surrounded by Guinea, Ivory Coast and Liberia on the West African coast, Sierra Leone is land of human diversity and mineral riches. As a political entity, the country is byproduct of the slave trade. Late in the 18th century, it was established as a colony for freed slaves who wanted to return safely to Africa. Sadly, the country subsequently became an example of the lasting chaos that the slave trade made of many African cultures. When the Portuguese began frequenting these West African shores in the 15th century, the territory was divided among small chieftaincies, many of them hostile to one another. Hence, the region yielded slaves readily, as one group was willing to sell members of another for profit.

When British abolitionists colonized Sierra Leone, they hoped to resettle freed slaves from throughout the New World, and began doing so in Freetown in 1792. The powerful Temne people were understandably mistrustful and resisted forcefully. But in the first half of the 19th century, the colony attracted Africans from all over, and together they made the capital, Freetown, a vibrant economic center and the home of a new culture, Krio. But outside the city, old animosities and slaving continued right up to 1928, when the British finally ended the illicit trade.

Shortly thereafter, diamond and gold mining emerged as centerpieces of the local economy. After independence in 1961, Sierra Leone swung from a conservative, market economy government to a far more left-leaning government during the `70s when the collapse of the oil market hit hard undermining, among other things, the country's recording industry. Things looked up briefly in the `80s, but in 1991, Liberia's militant rebel leader Charles Taylor brought that country's civil war to Sierra Leone, and the country has known a period of severe brutality and chaos ever since.

Music in Sierra Leone

Despite unfortunate circumstances, Sierra Leone has shared in the musical wealth and creativity of West Africa. Portuguese sailors brought the first guitars, and the coastal peoples took to it early on, developing a local version of so-called palm wine guitar, a lovely, lilting song style epitomized in modern times by the late, great S.E. Rogie. Palm wine music, or maringa as it's known locally, is a cousin of Trinidadian calypso. These light, playful styles may both have origins among the Kru, or Krio--seafaring, guitar-picking peoples of Sierra Leone and Liberia. In the `50s and `60s Ebenezer Calender, the son of a Barbadian soldier, recorded popular maringa songs as well as hits in an older style people called goom-bay (gumbe).

Goom-bay led to a modern form of street music called milo-jazz, named for the chocolate powder can that, when filled with stones, became the style's signature percussion instrument. Olofemi (Doctor Oloh) Israel Cole and his Milo-Jazz Band gave this music its start, and the music remained a feature of street life in Freetown until civil war devastated the city's cultural expression in the 1990s.

During the 1970's, Sierra Leone did share in the electric Afropop explosion that was sweeping Africa. Maringa blended with funk, soul, and Congolese dance music leading to lively and popular local music. Bands of that era included Afro-Nationals, Orchestra Muyah, Super Combo, and Sabannoh 75. When the recording industry fell apart, ambitious and talented artists like S.E. Rogie mostly went to England to make their careers. The most successful electric artist of the `80s and `90s is vocalist, guitarist and percussionist Abdul Tee-Jay, who blends palm wine and Congo music from his base in London. Vocalist and percussionist Seydu has launched a career recording fusion music in Spain, and percussionist Ansoumana Bangura plays a mix of Sierra Leonean traditional pop styles in Germany. A few hearty souls are working today in Freetown, including Ngoh Gbetuwai and Great Steady Bongo.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre