Somalia's information minister gave his respects today:
Her father was colonial officer posted in Baidoa which is she came to be born in Baydhabo speaking both Maay and Maxaa tiri.Confirming her death, Somali Information Minister, Abdirahman Omar Osman said Dalees was the first female singer heard on Radio Muqdisho in 1952.
"I am extending condolence on the death of Khadija Abdullahi Dalees, she was the first female musician sung on Radio Muqdisho in 1952," said Osman in a twitter post.
Waxaan ka tacsiyadeynayaa geeridii fannaanada caanka ah ee Khadija Abdullahi Dalees. Dalees waxey aheyd gabadhii ugu horreysey ee ka heesta Raadiyo Muqdisho 1952dii waqtigaas oo uusan jirin aalada duubista, waxey iman jirtay istuudiyaha oo ay si toos ah u qaadi jirtey heesaha.
— Abdirahman O. Osman (@engyarisow) January 15, 2018
https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2018/Jan/ ... anada.aspx
This is Hassan Adan Samatar relaying how he got into arts. He heard Dalays on the radio as a kid and decided he needed to meet her. She gave him an expensive kaban and introduced him to the big artists giving him his first break. He calls her the mother of the modern Somali artsSomalia's first female singer, Daleys was born in 1936 in Baidoa, in south-central Somalia, and discovered her vocal talent at school.
"A woman singing was considered shameful," she says in Somali, with local music promoter Kawmayn Hussein translating. "There were demonstrations. I got pressure from my neighbours, my family. But my father told them, 'Let her sing.' "
At 16, she started singing at Radio Mogadishu, in the capital, and four years later dared to make a stage appearance at Cinema Hamar.
"After that, people accepted me and other female singers followed."
