Socially conscious instrumentalist whose innovative songwriting helped to shape modern music in his homeland of Somalia
The musician Ahmed Ismail Hudeidi, who has died aged 91, was the acknowledged king of the oud, a short-necked, lute-type instrument that is widely played across Africa and the Middle East. More than that, he developed a style on that instrument that came to epitomise modern Somali music.
In the 1950s he began to put traditional Somali folksongs to new instrumentation, and he also composed in a new “Qaraami” style, which, like the blues, could tell love stories as well as comment on life and society. Songs such as Ur Hooyo, Riftoon, Rogaal and Raheye became classics that have been reproduced by Somali musicians of every generation since – and remain popular still.
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