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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCiEPsjRCi4&[/youtube]

I just wrote a long piece on the Somali-American Rap group Malitia Malimob over at Africa is a Country. I won’t write too much more here so you can head on over to check out the post, but you DA readers should know that Malitia Malimob will be playing alongside Matt and myself in Seattle at the Dutty Artz Showcase at The Crocodile on April 3rd. The show will be the first out of town stop for Matt on his tour to promote The Empire Never Ended.

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Pirates hijacking large shipping vessels on the Somali coast and in the Gulf of Aden is a top news item this year, especially after the takeover of Saudi-owned Sirius Star which was carrying two million barrels of oil bound for the U.S.   Most recently, the news has been about combating and taking steps to “crack down” and “curb” this problem of piracy, which has been going on since the early ’90s, at the start of the country’s civil war.

There is always two or more sides to a story.  From what I understand, the region the Chinese are planning to control is so incredibly vast that military action will, without a doubt, prove ineffective.  Depressing economic situation and a lack of a central government are only two of the forces pushing young men in “cash-strapped, hungry Somalia” to piracy. What happens when life on land becomes unlivable, chaotic, poverty-stricken, when there is no work, no income?  Desperate people look towards the sea…

Check the new video from Mogadishu born, Ontario based emcee, K’naan, who recorded his entire album in Kingston, JA, thanks to his friends Stephen and Damian Marley who granted him access to their late father’s recording studio>>>

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lCPXEARpE8[/youtube]