"Take a few seconds and imagine no music on your local FM station. That is currently the situation in Somalia's capital Mogadishu where radio stations have complied with the wishes of the radical islamic group Hizbul Islam. Most radio stations in Somalia have stopped playing music, on the orders of Islamist Hizbul-Islam insurgents who say that songs are un-Islamic."

Somalia music ban - BBC Worldservice / BBC News

The Mogadishu Music Festival is a *fictive* music festival situated in the Somalian capital Mogadishu, founded to speak out against the barbaric act of banning music in Somalia. Its purpose is to make people, and especially musicians, DJs, music critics and music lovers, aware of these inhuman practices in Somalia, described by the BBC as 'strong echoes of the Taliban in Afghanistan', who proclaimed a ban on music in the late 1999s. We believe that it's a human right to listen to music, and that the sharia government in Somalia is infringin and even violating this right and other human rights such as the freedom of press and freedom of speech ('everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression').

We think it's ridiculous that Somalian radio stations had to comply with this ban as if they did not, they would be risking their limbs and lives. Whe think it's absurd that Somalian DJs have to play sounds of gunfire, tweeting birds and traffic noise to fill all those minutes empty of music, and we want to share this opinion. We want to bring the Somalians their music back. To accomplish this, we founded a fictive festival in the Somalian capital Mogadishu, the Mogadishu Music Festival. Believers of our ideals can 'attend' this festival by spreading our message. Bands and musicians can help fulfilling our purposes by sending in songs or dedicate existing songs to the Mogadishu Music Festival and DJs can help us by broadcasting these and other songs in their shows and paying attention to the project.

To make a fictive festival more concrete, we've planned an international radio broadcast dedicated to the right to listen music on the 5th of July, 2010. As said before, bands and musicians can participate by sending in their songs (see the contact page). Radio stations and DJs willing to participate can contact us and we will provide further information. Both musicians and radio stations as well as other organizations, weblogs and magazines will be mentioned as 'sponsors' on the Mogadishu Music Festival website when they participate to the Mogadishu Music Festival.

We promised five bands, the Beautiful Freaks gave you six. Doesn’t matter, because the more, the better. And who are these bands and artists? John Grant, who has made a beautiful album together with Midlake, Joanna Newsom, the harpist, pianist and singer-songwriter who brought out a 3-disc CD/LP this year, Irish band The Frames and their singer’s side-project The Swell Season, the Dutch bands De Staat, who gained international success and are playing on Glastonbury this year, and NeWax, who are less famous but still good and powerful.

There’s a playlist in our sidebar from where you can listen to the songs those bands and artists dedicated to the Mogadishu Music Festival. We think they’re all great songs, going from folk to rock to punk to dance.

We would like to thank all of these bands and, not to forget, their managers and labels for being interested and helping us. Thanks!