Living Like a Refugee
| Living Like a Refugee | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album / field recordings by Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars | ||||
| Released | September 25, 2006 Europe and September 26, 2006 US | |||
| Recorded | Guinea and Sam Jones' Island Studios Sierra Leone | |||
| Producer | Chris Velan | |||
| Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Billboard | (favorable) |
| The Guardian | |
| ABC |  |
Living Like a Refugee is the debut album from Sierra Leonian band Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, released in the Europe on 25 September 2006 and in the United States on 26 September 2006.
Sierra Leone and Freetown in particular has a rich musical history with a vibrant live scene still active start of the 1990s before the start of the Sierra Leone Civil War.Reuben Koroma, the main writer on the album, was a professional musician in Sierra Leone, his band The Emperors regularly played around Freetown. In 1997 the violence of the Civil War forced Koroma to flee to neighboring Guinea where he lived in a UN refugee camps.
The tracks on the album were recorded over a number of years with the help of the crew of the documentary Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars. The earliest tracks, Living Like A Refugee and Ma Fo Ya, were recorded live in refugee camps in Guinea by Banker White and Zach Niles while they were making a documentary about music in refugee camps. Living Like A Refugee was recorded at Sembakounya refugee camp as the band "played by the light of an oil lamp". The others were recorded in 2003 and 2004 at Sam Jones' Island Studios in Freetown. The album was produced by Chris Velan who was musical director for the film Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars.
The songs on the album fall into a number of different music styles, with some songs a fusion of more than one style. The music on the album has been described as having a reggae style but others have said this is incorrect and as Sierra Leone’s baskeda music has a feel close to reggae, which the bands writer has commented about. Writing in The Independent Andy Morgan describes this similarity as:
Other styles evident in the album include palm-wine and gumbe. The track Kele Mani "is lively gumbe, animated by bottle and hand-drum percussion and an ancient-sounding acoustic guitar." The influence of traditional West African music is present, for example gbute vange a style of music of Mende people in the track Pat Malonthone. These styles are overlaid on a baskeda rhythm and given a modern feel with the use of electric guitars and drums.
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