Sahra Halgan (Somaliland)

Sahra Ahmed Mohamoud, aka Sahra Halgan, is an exceptional musician, a passionate fighter for cultural identity and a political activist. She earned the nickname ‘Halgan’, which means ‘fighter’, way back in the 1980s, when she worked as an untrained frontline nurse during the war to free Somalilanda from the grip of dictator Siad Barré, rousing the fighters with her singing and winning the hearts of her countrymen and women. The war eventually sent her into exile in France, where the structural inequalities and marginalisation she encountered there caused her to put aside her musical ambitions for 20 years.

Sahra Halgan (vocals) / Maël Saletes (guitar) / Régis Monte (bass) / Aymeric Krol (drums, percussion)

She then formed a band in Lyon with Maël Saletes (Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp) and Aymeric Krol (BKO), before returning to Hargeisa, capital of musically vibrant Somaliland, with a burning desire to help rebuild her homeland. The band have stayed together, toured across three continents, and last year released their third album, Hiddo Dhawr, as a quartet. Traditional poetry from centuries gone by, ceremonial, dance and love songs, rousing political content – Sahra’s voice musters all the warmth and ornamental complexity it can to convey the history of the Somali people and their place in the world, as well as their tragedies and joys, with irony, seriousness, mystery and dignity. There can be no better way to bring Druga Godba 2025 to a close.

Organisation: Druga Godba in collaboration with Kino Šiška.