Belwo

Belwo (also spelled balwo) is the genre that founded modern Somali popular song, created in the 1940s in British Somaliland by truck driver and poet *Abdi Sinimo*. It sets short Somali poems, compressed quatrains on love, misfortune and everyday life, to light accompaniment of oud (kaban), drums and handclaps, sung in an intimate, conversational delivery at social gatherings. The name means 'misfortune', after the breakdown that legend says prompted Sinimo's first song. Belwo broke with older Somali sung poetry by joining modern verse to dance rhythm, and it opened the way to the heelo and qaraami styles that followed.