|
 through horrible
things forget about their problems and make them smile and
laugh," says band leader Ruben Koroma.
Appearing at Poland's Globaltica World Cultures Festival last
weekend, they delivered a typically vibrant, energetic and
uplifting show.
The people of Gdynia - a Nordic city where metal and hard rock
tend to be the music of choice - danced and sang to the funky
African grooves, traditional Sierra Leonean beats, and old
school reggae mixed with a flavor of New Orleans.
The All Stars are celebrating 10 years since the making of their
first album "Living Like a Refugee". Their fourth and latest
album, "Libation" is an offering for "the blessings that our
music has brought us".
It has been a remarkable journey.
The band were formed in a Guinean refugee camp during Sierra
Leone's 1991-2002 civil war. "Living Like A Refugee" was
recorded in tin-roofed shacks in a Freetown shantytown - a
process depicted in a 2005 documentary film directed by Zach
Niles and Banker White.
"The U.N. refugee agency helped us make our first album and
there was also a Canadian NGO called CECI, donating speakers,
mixers, a generator, microphones and two guitars to help us
become more audible" Koroma told Reuters.
That set them on the path to worldwide exposure.
Producer Steve Berlin of Los Lobos worked with them for their
second album "Rise & Shine", released in 2010. Keyboardist
Victor Axelrod, aka Ticklah, who previously worked with stars
such as Amy Winehouse, produced their third album "Radio Salone",
released in 2012.
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But the war - which claimed 70,000 casualties and made 2.6 million
people refugees - left a mark on Koroma's soul.
With his socially-conscious lyrics, also inspired by his father and
by the late Bob Marley, Koroma hopes that his music can help uplift
people and detraumatize them.
"The situation in Sierra Leone is very difficult. While the album
gave me confidence to leave the refugee camps, many people are still
there, living in bad conditions," he said.
In 2008, the Refugee All Stars returned to Guinea, where many Sierra
Leoneans are still living in refugee camps, to perform and to try to
"inspire the young to move on with their lives, away from the
refugee camps".
Koroma's message is one of peace.
"We want peace," he sang out to the audience at Globaltica.
The concert was part of a tour taking the band to Glasgow in
Scotland and Waterford in Ireland before moving on to Canada and the
United States through September.
Festival art director Piotr Pucylo said the Refugee All Stars had
been on top of his wish list.
"We are always trying to find artists with a story to tell," he
said.
(Editing by Michael Roddy and Angus MacSwan)
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