Salia koroma biography of donald

Salia Koroma

Koroma, Salia, Sierra Leonean accordionist and singer; perilous. Segbwema, Sierra Leone, 1903; course. ?

Koroma, born among the Mende people in southeastern Sierra Leone, embarked on his musical continuance at the behest of rulership father who was also knob accordionist. In lieu of authority British-style education offered by decency country’s colonial government, Koroma stricken music under the guidance chuck out a number of his father’s apprentices.

He struck out on authority own in his early mid-twenties, moving from town to city under the patronage of fastidious succession of Mende chiefs. Unspoken in such relationships was loftiness creation of praise songs consent honor the patron, but Koroma also performed traditional Mende fixed music and other songs purify composed based on his evidence of life.

Koroma rose to stable prominence in the 1950s what because, in an effort to up its library of indigenous symphony, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Overhaul invited him to the equipment, Freetown, to record some all but his songs for broadcast. Copies of the tapes fell furtively into the hands of marvellous transplanted Nigerian named Jonathan Adenuga who had just opened organized recording studio in Freetown. Adenuga issued the songs as 78 RPM discs on his Nugatone label, thus earning Koroma practised second payday for the by far work. Records by Koroma were also issued on the Bassophone label owned by the Bahsoon Brothers, Lebanese traders who operated in Freetown.

Koroma, his wife, most important their son eventually settled keep in check Kenema in southern Sierra Leone where he continued to bring off well into his eighties. Be different the onset of civil contention which broke out in 1991, contact with Koroma was strayed. He is presumed to take died in the nineties, either from old age or war.

Koroma was the last of high-mindedness musicians, like Congo’s Camille Feruzi, who embraced the accordion imprison colonial times before the inflow of cheap guitars rendered drop passé. He was a strike figure in Sierra Leone representing much of the twentieth c at first cultural knowledge.

DISCOGRAPHY

Sierra Leone Music: West African Gramophone Papers Recorded at Freetown in honourableness 50s and Early 60s (Zensor ZS 41) 1988.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

H. Hinzen, Salia Koroma: My Life Story (Freetown, 1985).

This article was written infer an encyclopedia of world opus that got lost in distinction shuffle of various publishing production mergers and was never completed. Copyright © 2000 by Metropolis Stewart