Republic of Upper Volta

Terrorisme, c'est une guerre de réinvasion dans le texte.

Et création de la Haute-Volta, formation du territoire pour le contexte.

Oublie la préhistoire, ce mot est dépassé.

C'est histoire avant trois mille.

Anciens combattants ? Vétérans africains et plus encore.

Terrorisme ? C'est une guerre de réinvasion dans le texte.

Et création de la Haute-Volta ? Formation du territoire pour le contexte.

Oublie la préhistoire, ce mot est débris.

We've got Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Hungary, Iran, Laos...

Libya, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, Soviet Union, South Yemen, Upper Volta, and Vietnam.

Wow.

Okay.

think some of them just, we didn't have money.

So it's a convenient thing to say, there's a boycott, we'll join it.

Albania, Iran, Libya and Upper Volta were nothing to do with the Soviet boycott.

They just boycotted for different reasons.

Let's jump into Burkina Faso and the great Thomas Sankara.

So, the country was called Upper Volta before.

Upper Volta.

France, again, it was one of the francophone countries.

They had ruled it as a colony and they became independent on the 5th of August 1960.

you

understand so it's hard you know what i'm saying um in certain places so if if there was droughts and stuff yeah farming would be in trouble so there's limited immigration a lot of that's changing now obviously we'll get into that um there was a lot of um weak infrastructure a lot of things that were happening because again the french didn't care and like you've seen in certain um countries like we even mentioned in mozambique a lot of things were concentrated in particular areas where they were based nothing to do with the people but to do with their infrastructure So, yeah, politically independence didn't really bring about much for the nation, right? There were a lot of military interventions as well, changes of government, kind of like the UK, with its very different five ministers, no stability, people changing over, all that type of stuff.

French colonial economic policy had also treated Upper Volta as a reserve of labour for other territories, rather than investing heavily in the development of that country itself.

He was a musician, a Marxist, a man of the people.

He changed the country's name from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, Land of Honest Men, and launched a revolution that sought to free his people not just from colonialism, but from poverty, ignorance, and dependency.

He was assassinated at 37.

Samora Machel was 41 when Mozambique gained independence in 1975.

[laughs]

... sort of like the capital of Upper Volta-

Yeah

... or which is now Burkina Faso.

And in our statistics, we have 1,300 churches in Ghana.

We have others in Togo and Dahomey and Upper Volta.

That is the number of churches.

Now, in these churches, we do not have a pastor in every church, but we have elders and deacons to look after the work there.

I'm American, and it's Turkey.

I would still call Burkina Faso Upper Volta, except the day before I took my eighth grade test on the African nations, there was a coup, and they changed Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, and Mr.

Lake, my geography teacher, made me change it.

Myanmar is still Burma in my mind, and I had to learn the Berlin Wall and all the nations.

There were six post-independence coups, and every single one of them was bloodless.

Or look at Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso.

Yeah.

The political activity there was confined to such a microscopic elite circle that the incoming ministers who just executed a coup-

Um, so we are going to, um, listen to a number of records that I believe, um, introduces you to a musical world that for many years remained largely hidden outside of the West African region.

The extraordinary popular music of Upper Volta, the country which we now know as Burkina Faso.

During the 1960s and '70s, cities like Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso were full of orchestras, blending local Mandingue and Mossi traditions with Cuban rhythms, highlife, soul, funk, and Congolese and French influences.

You'll hear some of the great names from that scene Amadou Ballaké, Pierre Sandwidi, Abdoulaye Cissé, and the remarkable Dafora Star, alongside musicians whose records have only recently begun to receive the international attention they deserve.

And this wasn't a music scene confined by modern national borders.

A lot of the musicians came from, uh, neighboring countries like Guinea and, uh, uh, the Ivory Coast, and they would travel in to collaborate with mu-musicians in Upper Volta.

So this is a sonic story of movement, musical exchange, and incredible creativity, all captured on a handful of beautifully rough-edged records.

Let's begin with, uh, the Bobo Yeye Volta Jazz album, which Sanlé Story-- So-Sory shot for, uh, and made the cover art for.