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 9 Popular music in the time of decay – the 1980s and 1990s Economic breakdown, technological advancements, and world music (1980s) In the 1980s, Sierra Leone was descending into insolvency. Growing foreign debt, rampant inflation, currency devaluation, budget deficit, grand-scale corruption and declining exports wrenched the economy to several successive lowpoints and resulted in chronic shortages of food, fuel and electricity (Alie 2006: 109, 120-121). The public and government institutions were increasingly deprived of capital derived from natural resources, which the political elite used in order to sustain their patron-client relations. Very few public utilities were functioning. Social services, especially health and education, were degenerating. The country’s infrastructures in general deteriorated (Conteh-Morgan & DixonFyle 1999: 93-95). In the course of the 1980s, Sierra Leone’s status in the UN system relegated from a low income country to the least of the less developed, and, by 1990, to the very least developed country in the world (UNDP 1990). Unlike in the 1970s, the economic decline of the 1980s severely affected the music scene and market. Generally, the boom of locally produced popular music that characterized the two precedent decades came to an end. The era of live bands started to fade out already from the late 1970s onwards. Most live bands could not generate enough revenue to continue to be viable. Those who were successful and popular enough, left for other West African countries, to Europe or the US. The bands that did not manage to leave abroad slowly disappeared from the scene. The collaboration between popular musicians and the political elite came to the fore more pronounced as a number of live performing groups remained on the scene through their connection to the state. Until his death in 1985, Ebenezer DISCOnnections 78 Calendar and his band were the musical mainstay of most official celebrations and of radio and television broadcasts. A rare example of a popular dance band of the 1970s that managed to survive was Muyeh Power who, after an unsuccessful attempt to launch a career in the US, aligned with the political elite, changed their name into the APC Dance Band, and continued playing throughout the 1980s.The bands of the police, the military, and the prison, which existed already since decades but were eclipsed by the youthful dance bands of the 1960s and ‘70s, experiences even a sort of rebirth. Their revival was mainly connected to the 1980 OAU meeting, which was organized in Freetown and whose costs and the high-level corruption involved precipitated the country’s subsequent economic collapse (Koroma 1996: 29-30). Dr Daddy Loco, who was appointed the new leader of the Prison Dance Band in 1979, told me that in the run-up to the meeting, all three bands were equipped with new instruments at the expense of the state and given an almost free financial rein to hire renowned musicians from the resolved popular dance bands. Daddy Loco made munificent use of this offer. He engaged eighteen musicians and managed to convince legendary guitarist Freddie Green to join them, who before played with the Super Combo. During the OAU meeting, the revamped bands then served as musical entertainment for the visiting head of states and their entourage. The Prison Dance Band was chosen to welcome the political celebrities at their arrival. Daddy Loco recalls the ceremonial: I had many great musicians with the Prison Dance Band. So before the (OAU) meeting they came to me and ask me to compose a song for the OAU. I composed the music. When the meeting of the African Union came, they took us to the airport. For every president and prime minister who came down, we played the song for him. Oh-yu, oh-yu, oh-yu, yu come down na Sierra Leone. The sharp economic decline that struck Sierra Leone’s popular music scene in the 1980s was somewhat contradicted by the rise and rising affordability of new music-related technologies. The introduction of better and cheaper sound systems and instruments, most notably a new generation of audio amplifiers and the electronic keyboard, further aided the general decline of live band music. The set-up and engagement of a live performing band was an expensive enterprise. Some of the 1970s’ ensembles consisted of up to ten or more musicians who all needed their instruments and payment. A single amplifier including speakers, two tape decks, a mixer and often a microphone, was easy to use and, most importantly, much cheaper...

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