Jessica Hatcher-Moore is an award-winning journalist based in North Wales. Prior to Wales, she lived in Nairobi. Design updated in Sequined head scarves and dangling earrings shimmered as young people twisted and stomped to a hip-hop beat.
One woman carried a large Somali flagβa sky blue background stamped with a single white starβthat she waved in time to music emanating from the stage, or what passed for one: a corrugated metal canopy held up by wooden poles. Rappers and singers performed sets, some in Somali, others in English.
Turn up the volume , was the mimed directive. The sound guy demurred; he knew better. Until a year and a half prior, Mogadishu had been largely controlled by the Islamist extremist group al-Shabaab, which made playing music punishable by flogging or even death. But the extremists maintained a network of supporters who carried out suicide bombings and other targeted attacks. Concert organizers had received a barrage of death threats.
His name was Bill Brookman, and while reporting on the historic concert, I found myself following him closely because he was a curious, quixotic figure. Brookman was a professional clown. He was 57 and white, with a pink face drenched in sweat that plastered locks of curly gray hair to his forehead.
Despite how the guards referred to him, he had a childlike demeanor, jocular and spontaneous. He wore black and white striped pants, bright red boots, an orange T-shirt with tasseled sleeves, and a green cravat embellished with silver charms. Black eyeliner had seeped into the creases beneath his eyes.
