Brigadier Sabari

The record opens with a police siren. Alpha Blondy's Brigadier Sabari, from his 1982 debut album Jah Glory, tells of a night raid by the security forces in the streets of Abidjan: a young man without his papers in order stands up to the uniforms, sure he is in the right, and ends up folded into the back of the truck, begging the officer for mercy. According to his biography, the song draws on his own arrest in Abidjan and the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of the police. It was sung in Dioula, probably the first song ever recorded in that language. Sabari is a Malinké word that here means asking forgiveness, though it can also mean patience, and the title roughly translates as "Have mercy, officer". That choice of language and subject mattered. The album was an enormous success, Blondy became a star in Abidjan, and fans began calling him the Bob Marley of Africa. Jah Glory came to be seen as a symbol of resistance, and Brigadier Sabari is often described as the birth certificate of African reggae. It remains his best-known song and the one he often uses to close his concerts. It has been covered by Twee Belgen, by La Brigade with Pierpoljak as Opération coup de poing, and by Tiken Jah Fakoly on Racines, his 2015 album of reggae standards. Four decades on, a song about a night in the back of a police truck still speaks to anyone who has been stopped without reason.