On Tuesday, 18th of May 2004, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) University of London, held a book launch and a seminar to discuss the release of the first book about Music Censorship, Shoot the Singer.

Edited by the Executive director of Freemuse, the book tackles the issue of censorship in music around the world. Freemuse is an independent international organisation advocating freedom of expression for musicians and composers around the globe. The first conference that Freemuse held on the matters of music censorship was in November 1998, in Copenhagen. Shoot the Singer is actually the first book to be written to report on censorship in music around the globe. The seminar was introduced by Marie Korpe (Executive Director of Freemuse), who spoke of different cases of censorship around different countries. Her compelling findings and reports were astonishing to the listeners. She began her speech by proclaiming that Freemuse stood for: Freedom to perform music, Freedom to listen and enjoy music by others and Freedom for ethnic minorities. After her short welcoming, where she also spoke of her organisation, Freemuse and the whole concept of music censorship, she introduced the audience to Andy Morgan, who had filmed a documentary on Matoub Lounes, an Algerian singer who had moved to France after his music was being oppressed and censored by the government.

The documentary, though enlightening, was sad to see so much determination of such talent. Mr Morgan, when speaking about the making of his documentary, spoke of the present situation of Matoub Lounes. Sadly, two years after the documentary was made, Matoub went back to his home country, where he got married. It’s Ironic when he said the mountains will protect him, because one day he was driving, somewhere, with his wife and her sister when he was ambushed and killed.

Mr Morgan also informed us of Matoub Lounes popularity of and his songs. He sang about language, the truth about great people… This grew his popularity by a great deal. He then explained how other artists, like Matoub Lounes, are being forced to be silenced when speaking the truth.

After the audience asked Andy Morgan questions, Marie Korpe had the delight to introduce Thomas Mapfumo, a singer from Zimbabwe who has moved to America due to his music being oppressed and censored by the government. Simon Broughton and Marie Korpe, who asked him about his music and his views on censorship, interviewed him.

After the interview there was a short break, where there was live music to entertain us, as well as time to be able to ask John Baily, Keith Howard and Marie Korpe their thoughts on the Book and music Censorship:

Keith Howard
I think the book is Wonderful. Freemuse and the whole organisation have created something that is very very modern for us and its bringing attention to something we all know to be happening. It’s not necessary saying that you should remove all censorship, it’s questioning the issues there of why people censor and if you go to societies, say Iran or….. Particularly Iran, where pop music is clearly a problem for the regime. We need to understand these things and we need to question why this is prohibited in censors, and this book does it.

John Baily
I think that it is very useful because I assume it is not going to be a very academic book. It is not going to be a language that people find difficult to understand, certainly my own short contribution there about Afghanistan has got lots of anecdotes and testimony from individuals, which I have gathered actually from a film call Breaking the Silence, which is the same name as my chapter, which is a film made by the Simon Broughton, chairing that session of which I was also consulted. So now a lot of the stuff they used I’ve been able to put in there and some of this direct account of what it’s like or was like in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.

Marie Korpe
I’ve been working on this book for a while it is like my baby. The book is based on some of the speeches held in the 2 conferences about Music and Censorship. You could say we should have had more countries along but this is what we could work with and it’s also the first book in the world on Music Censorship worldwide. I’m very happy to come so far because earlier we were making shorter reports about one country, maybe a little more in depth than the book. But it is a good way of bringing attention to the subject… And so the subject of Music Censorship is enlighten even more when after the break Keith Howard spoke of North Korea and its censorship towards music.

He then asked John Baily to make his talk about Afghanistan. He spoke of how music has become a political symbol of who is in control and with power. He also spoke of censorship used against women and music, where the government apposed to women singing and dancing. He concluded his speech by asking Matthaios Tsahourides to join him to conclude the day seminar and book launch by giving the audience a mini concert of Afghan music. A wonderful delight!

Many are being silenced for speaking their hearts, and Shoot the Singer captures and documents events of music censorship that has occurred around the globe.