Magool

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Magool (c. May 2, 1948 - March 19, 2004) was a Somali singer and musician. She was ranked Number 1 in Qaran’s “The Top 10 Somali singers of All Time.”

Magool was born as Halima Khaliif Omar in the city of Beledweyne, the capital of Hiiraan state. She had four siblings. In 1959, while living at the house of a cousin of hers named Mohamed Hashi, she joined a small Mogadishu-based band. Within that year, she moved to Hargeysa where she joined the city's version of the Mogadishu-based Waaberi. From there she was nick-named "Magool", which means flower, by songwriter Yusuf Haji Adan.

In the mid-1960s, Magool came back to Mogadishu. She married a young general named Mohamed Nur Galaal. The marriage did not last but her popularity continued to rise. In the 1970s, she sang famous patriotic songs while Somalia was at war with Ethiopia.

In the late 1970s, she sang love songs but also sang Islamic songs that did not agree with the government. A self-imposed exile followed, which lasted until 1987. Her concert of that year, titled "Mogadishu and Magool", is to date the most successful concert in Somali history. More than 15 thousand people turned out in the city's stadium.

Her unique performances, talents of memorizing entire albums in hours and her deep, skipping voice made it possible for her to be called Hoyadii Fanka, or "Mother of Artistry."

In the early 1990s, she fought against the brutal and dictatorial regime of late Mohamed Siad Barre.

On March 19, 2004, she died in a hospital in Amsterdam of breast cancer. She did not leave any children.

Her nephew K'naan, is a popular Canadian hip-hop artist and poet.