Linny Hoo
I watched a music video, Linny Hoo, that's a viral Internet sensation. It's a mash up between a young Malawian Gospel singer, Patrice Namadingo and another Malawian musician Giddess Chalamanda who was 90 when the video was recorded in 2020.
Since portions of the video went viral, the story of Giddess Chalamanda has thickened a lot. I won't try to tell the story here because part of the charm of Internet sensations is the links and connections that people follow once curiousity is piqued.
One of my curiosities was that Giddess wrote a song in the 1960s entitled "Buffalo Soldier." The song features prominently in stories about Giddess and how he dreamed of visiting the USA. He did visit in 2016.
I can’t find the link that sent me down a rabbit hole about the song, but it suggested that Giddess may have read a book By William Leckie and Shirely Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers.
William Leckie served in World War II and according to his obituary:”
“[H]e briefly commanded an African American battalion of soldiers, and the prejudice they encountered while serving in uniform later led him to write the history of black cavalrymen in the post-Civil War army in the American West.”
Shirley Leckie is an academic historian and among her published works is a biography Angie Debo: Pioneering Historian. Debo was a historian of renown. The Wikipedia article on Debo begins:
“Angie Elbertha Debo (January 30, 1890 – February 21, 1988),[1] was an American historian who wrote 13 books and hundreds of articles about Native American and Oklahoma history.[2] After a long career marked by difficulties (ascribed both to her gender and to the controversial content of some of her books), she was acclaimed as Oklahoma's "greatest historian"[3] and acknowledged as "an authority on Native American history, a visionary, and an historical heroine in her own right."[4]”
My links from song to stories of American historians is idiosyncratic. Some of my favorite stories are about how songs jump borders. Idiosyncracy and personal links are part of how songs do it. Millions of people have listened to Namandingo and Giddess thanks to the Internet. Giddess Chalamanda singing about buffalo soldiers has sparked people's curiousity around the globe. Our lives gain meaning when we’re interested in stories about people and the historical contexts. Simple as they maybe, songs have a remarkable quality of sharing meaning acorss differences.
The Global Voices article on Namandingo is a great place to begin exploring music of Malawi, as is the Music of Malawi blog.
