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The Deadly Accordion Wars of Lesotho (The Tiny Country Where Accordion Music Can Get You Killed)
BBC ^ | 4/27/2022 | Tim Whewell

Posted on 04/28/2022 11:45:12 AM PDT by nickcarraway

Rivalry between stars of a unique accordion-based style of music in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho has sparked years of deadly gang warfare that has turned the tiny country into the murder capital of the continent.

"Maybe I've survived because I'm a woman," Puseletso Seema says quietly, her whisper a shadow of the powerful voice that once entranced thousands of fans in beer-halls and stadiums across southern Africa and beyond.

Acclaimed as the Queen of Famo, the popular national music of Lesotho, she sits on a scuffed sofa in her tiny, bare, cement-block home, with little to show for her years of success.

"Everyone wants to show off their manhood by owning a gun," she says.

Famo has the gentlest of origins. It developed when traditional "wayfarers' hymns" - a form of spontaneous oral poetry, or rap, composed by herders or travellers to while away long hours guarding cattle or journeying on foot through Lesotho's mountains - began to be accompanied first on the concertina, and later the accordion.

But in 2004, after one Famo musician allegedly shot another, a cycle of revenge developed, fuelled by poisonous lyrics in songs. And over the last two decades scores of Famo artists and hundreds of other people connected with the music - producers, fans, DJs, musicians' family members - have been gunned down.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Local News; Music/Entertainment; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: accordion; africa; music
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To: Boogieman

He was a great general, but wars do not great make you.


21 posted on 04/28/2022 12:26:56 PM PDT by BenLurkin ((The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.))
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To: nickcarraway

Just as annoying as this;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B2LPxggvqY


22 posted on 04/28/2022 12:29:24 PM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult
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To: nickcarraway

So it’s rappers with accordions. And we thought it was bad here.


23 posted on 04/28/2022 12:31:29 PM PDT by Disambiguator
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To: Rebelbase

I wonder what a band would sound like if it consisted of only accordions, bagpipes and banjos...lol


24 posted on 04/28/2022 12:32:09 PM PDT by Bobalu (Some people are psychopaths and the left is their natural home)
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To: nickcarraway
"Ah one, and ah two, and ah…”
25 posted on 04/28/2022 12:36:29 PM PDT by DFG
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To: Rebelbase

“Imagine the mayhem if this crosses borders and spills over into Scottish Bagpipes.”
Funniest thing I’ve read all day.


26 posted on 04/28/2022 1:02:00 PM PDT by sunny bonobo
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To: decal

“For a bit less fraught rivalry, between Zydeco immortals Boozoo Chavis and Beau Jocque, go find the documentary “The Kingdom of Zydeco.”
If anybody can make good accordian music, it’s American black people.


27 posted on 04/28/2022 1:04:57 PM PDT by sunny bonobo
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To: rdl6989
Weird Al Yankovic should avoid that area.

They might Polka his eyes out.
28 posted on 04/28/2022 1:18:07 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (“...we would live very well without Facebook."-B.LeMaire)
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To: nickcarraway

the Honner’s against the Beltuna’s... right???


29 posted on 04/28/2022 1:20:19 PM PDT by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
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To: nickcarraway

Accordions I can abide.

A banjo can cause a violent reaction in me after playing about 15 minutes.


30 posted on 04/28/2022 2:28:03 PM PDT by Gnome1949
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To: nickcarraway

“Everyone wants to show off their manhood by owning a gun,”

And in the olden days they did the same with Assegais and knobkerries.

But who wants to use 1880 weapons in the modern world!


31 posted on 04/28/2022 3:03:01 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Trannies, the modern version of the priests of Attis, Adonis, Osiris and Tammuz.)
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To: nickcarraway
"Maybe I've survived because I'm a woman," Puseletso Seema says quietly, her whisper a shadow of the powerful voice that once entranced thousands of fans in beer-halls and stadiums across southern Africa and beyond. Acclaimed as the Queen of Famo, the popular national music of Lesotho, she sits on a scuffed sofa in her tiny, bare, cement-block home, with little to show for her years of success.

Puseletso Seema Ngoetsi (adult content)

32 posted on 04/28/2022 7:16:57 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (If science can’t be questioned, it’s not science anymore, it’s propaganda. --Aaron Rodgers)
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