Hi folks,

Habib's posting below, reminds me of an exchange I had last year with Daniel
Janke of Scratch Records about the spelling Yan Kuba.  I wrote to say that we
spelt the name as "Yankuba" in The Gambia, and not "Yan Kuba" as indicated.  The
reason I took the trouble to point this out was not that I wanted to play
difficult, or follow the line of former President Senghore of Senegal, who got
himself into a bitter argument years ago with the late Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop
about how to spell Siggi (with one "g" or two "g"s).  By the way, as I recall
the issue died a natural death when Prof. Diop decided to name his paper "Taxaw"
instead.  Senghore, as a self-appointed guardian of the syntax and grammer of
the Wollof language (he must have been confusing it with French) was one that
made a big deal of these things.

At any rate, as I was saying, the reason I pointed out the the problem I had
with the spelling of Mr. Saho's name is that I have seen the many times when
people have been sloppy with spelling our Gambian names, and in the process make
it very difficult, if not impossible to follow any threads that relate different
events, people, or places.  But then again, we have somehow managed to come to
terms with variations in the spelling of our names from country to country,
depending on our colonial history.  Witness "Toure" a la Francophonie, vs.
"Touray" (in The Gambia), and "Turay" (in Sierra Leone).  Oh well ...

Anyway, congratulations to "Koto" Yankuba (I mean, YAN KUBA!) on the release of
his CD.

Katim

----- Original Message -----
From: USA Halal Chamber of Commerce <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 12:05 AM
Subject: from emusic.com


> Yan Kuba Saho
>
>                        Yan Kuba Saho was born in the mid-1940s in
> Dankunku in the district of Nyamina,
>                        Gambia, West Africa. At the age of ten he was
> sent to learn kora and to read the
>                        Koran with Faal Suso, in Salinkenni. After ten
> years of studies, Mr. Saho left Faal
>                        Suso's compound and traveled throughout Gambia
> and Senegal performing for
>                        friends and gaining patrons in the traditional
> way of the Mandinka griot (praise
>                        singer). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Yan Kuba

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