Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars is a band from Sierra Leone which was formed by a group of refugees displaced to Guinea during the Sierra Leone Civil War. Since their return to Freetown in 2004, the band has toured extensively to raise awareness for humanitarian causes. Their story is documented in the 2005 documentary film Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars. in 2006 Their debut album, Living Like a Refugee, was released on the label Anti in Europe on September 25, 2006 and in the US on September, 26 2006. Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars' second studio album, Rise & Shine, was released March 23, 2010 by Cumbancha, and earned 2010 Album of the Year on the World Music Charts Europe. The album was produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, recorded at Piety Street Studio in New Orleans and features local guest musicians Trombone Shorty, Washboard Chaz, and Bonerama. The band's third studio album, Radio Salone, was released on April 24, 2012 by Cumbancha. The album was produced by Victor Axelrod, aka Ticklah and recorded at Dunham Studios in Brooklyn, NY. Marking the band's 10th anniversary, their most recent album Libation was released on March 18, 2014. It features elements of highlife and reggae as well as Afro-Latin rhythms. The album was recorded at Lane Gibson Recording & Mastering, produced by Chris Velan, and mixed by Iestyn Polson. The band is formed of musicians Reuben M. Koroma, Ashade Pearce, Jahson Gbassay Bull, Alhaji Jeffrey Kamara aka Black Nature, Mohamed Kamara aka Makengo, Augustine Kobina Valcarcel, Dennis Bakarr Sannoh, and Christopher Wagbay Davies.
History
In the early years of the civil war, Freetown remained on the outskirts of the most violent areas, but was attacked by rebels in the late 1990s. Among those who fled the country were musicians Reuben Koroma, his wife Grace, and Franco, friends from the Freetown music scene who reconnected in the Kalia Refugee Camp in Guinea. There they began making music before being transferred to the remote Sembakounya Refugee Camp, where Arahim, Mohammed Bangura, and Alhadji Jeffrey Kamara joined the band. A Canadian relief agency supplied the group with two old electric guitars, a microphone, and a basic sound system. One day in August 2002, American documentary filmmakers Zach Niles and Banker White, and Canadian singer-songwriter Chris Velan encountered the group during rehearsal. They had been searching nearby refugee camps in Guinea for stories like the Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, which could "balance the Western media's focus on the region's violence with a sense of African society's beauty and resilience." At the time, the band was preparing to embark on a tour of Guinean refugee camps with the help of the United Nations refugee agency. The filmmakers followed their tour for three years, recording their joyous receptions, the traumas they faced, and the production of their first album, Living Like a Refugee, back in Freetown.
Although Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars' music has been described as having a reggae feel, it is more directly influenced by the baskeda folk music of Sierra Leone which "is close to reggae in sound and spirit." Writing in The Independent, Andy Morgan describes this similarity as: Other styles evident in their albums include the West African sounds of palm-wine, gumbe, and gbute vange, a music of the Mende people. Much of their music features the modern sounds of electric guitars, bass, and drum kits, but in their most recent album Libation, their "unplugged" style is a "return in a way to the days in the refugee camps when the band had to make do with whatever instruments they could round up or make by hand, and do without amplification and electronics." in 2006
