Thomas Sankara, political leader of Burkina Faso in the 1980s, was born on December 21, 1949 in Yako, a northern town in the Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso) of French West Africa. He was the son of a Mossi mother and a Peul father, and personified the diversity of the Burkinabè people of the area. In his adolescence, Sankara witnessed the country’s independence from France in 1960 and the repressive and volatile nature of the regimes that ruled throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
From 1970 to 1973, Sankara attended the military academy of Antsirabe in Madagascar where he trained to be an army officer. In 1974, as a young lieutenant in the Upper Volta army, he fought in a border war with Mali and returned home a hero. Sankara then studied in France and later in Morocco, where he met Blaise Compaoré and other civilian students from Upper Volta who later organized leftist organizations in the country. While commanding the Commando Training Center in the city of Pô in 1976, Thomas Sankara grew in popularity by urging his soldiers to help civilians with their work tasks. He additionally played guitar at community gatherings with a local band, Pô Missiles.
Throughout the 1970s, Sankara increasingly adopted leftist politics. He organized the Communist Officers Group in the army and attended meetings of various leftist parties, unions, and student groups, usually in civilian clothes.
In 1981, Sankara briefly served as the Secretary of State for Information under the newly formed Military Committee for Reform and Military Progress (CMRPN). This was a group of officers who had recently seized power. In April 1982, he resigned his post and denounced the CMRPM. When another military coup placed the Council for the People’s Safety in power, Sankara was subsequently appointed prime minister in 1983 but was quickly dismissed and placed under house arrest, causing a popular uprising.
On August 4, 1983, Blaise Compaoré orchestrated the “August Revolution,” or a coup d’état against the Council for the People’s Safety. The new regime which called itself the National Council for the Revolution (CNR) made 34-year-old Thomas Sankara president. As president, Sankara sought to end corruption, promote reforestation, avert famine, support women’s rights, develop rural areas, and prioritize education and healthcare. He renamed the country ‘Burkina Faso,’ meaning, “the republic of honorable people.”
On October 15, 1987, Thomas Sankara was killed with twelve other officials in a coup d’état instigated by Blaise Compaoré, his former political ally. He was 37 at the time of his death.
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mokey go to a concert
Went to a concert last night to see my teacher play.
He sounds great.
Overall sound was muddy, I wasnt interested in the selections. The band was rich white kids. The venue was in crackerland and I just came off a 11 hr shift and 2 hrs of practice. I was tired, I also got a little fucked up. I felt bad because I just wasn’t there or friendly, but man I can’t stand how unfair this music is and just life in general. I also hate how I’m the crazy/immature one for feeling this way. I can’t feel comfortable around the most insulated white people on the planet and a bunch of musicians who get rewarded for their parents having money.
Singer and guitarist are my parents have a boat money and i dont have to pay student loans rich. They can be the greatest musicians on the planet but Ill never give a shit about them because theres no grit in their stories. Singer was really good but her vocabulary had a lot of R+B non-jazz stuff in it which I wasn’t expecting and I always saw it as a crutch when the jazz language failed. Guitarist is playing pretty modern stuff all the way through. He was working at a music school my partner was at and my partner said he was a smug shitlord. I dont wish good things to happen to him.
Trumpet player is a friend actually, I love his playing but I also like trumpet players in general.
I didnt like the drummer, hes been getting a lot of gigs around town but like his time and bass hook up sucks. Good touch though, especially his hi hat splashes.
I didnt like that his ride cymbal beat was really inconsistent, rarely would he just play time and he was just constantly filling up space with “cool triplet” shit. His skip beat was all over the place, I never got a sense of who he was on that ride cymbal and my sentiment on the matter lately is that thats actually very important.
Louis Hayes had his beat. Elvin Jones had his beat. Blakey, Roach, Philly all had their beat. The ride pattern was orchestrated and phrased the same way on every track on every album, their entire career usually.
The most pronounced thing this guy did in terms of that was the extremely wide Count Basie beat. Which in a small group setting isnt cool to me.
Also his solos consisted of this very sloppy, rumbling, unarticulated, gelatinous sound that I notice some drummers do. I think it’s cool actually, I can’t really do it but I also suspect it’s a crutch because they can’t play their ideas cleanly and make them sing. Basically not enough technique work.
I suspect this guy is really creative and likes to listen to a lot of the music but consistency and technique is not there for me. I could be proven wrong though.
He also had a Sakai drum kit which is not cheap i know this and whose making that kind of money as a musician. I dont have one and I have a real full time job. Sus to me, this dude is probably also rich white kid.
It seems that you had good reason to dislike the concert and your critique, that I really enjoyed reading btw., reads as the opposite of being crazy or immature. I sadly don’t know much about jazz, but I think to point out how bourgeois education and its surroundings translate into musical shortcommings is an important thing to do in general.
Thank you for that
I have a colleague idunno if id call him a friend at this point but he comes from a rough background as well and he makes me feel like im whining about this shit.
I dont think hes a good friend though and is pretty selfish. He’s the type of guy to post about Israeli war crimes because he sees everyone else sympathizing with the Palestinians, not because he knows or cares about the situation at all. There’s a strain of male musician that is too comfortable with liking everything girls do while being a dick to anyone who can’t get hin laid. He also likes cute girl anime a little too much.
He might just be an idiot, i have a feeling he’ll catch up to where I’m currently at as far being angry/socialist when I’ve already moved onto something else.
Iunno theres just not enough discussion in the jazz community about how money influences the scene. People dont want to talk about it because of either guilt, they dont think, they clout chase or they want to make money.