Funk diplomacy: When Malta grooved to Gaddafi’s beat

Few national leaders are as peculiar as Muammar Gaddafi. He rose to power at just 27 years old through a military coup, went on to nationalise the oil industry, and implemented a raft of social programmes to improve housing, healthcare and education levels. 

However, his revolution also had its dark side. He led an authoritarian administration and was accused of various human rights violations. Gaddafi remained firmly in power until the Arab Spring in 2011, when he had proclaimed that he would rather “die a martyr” than leave Libya during the protests. He went on to be killed while in hiding that same year. 

Throughout his leadership, Malta maintained a cosy relationship with Gaddafi. He was not just a neighbourhood ‘tyrant’ with whom Malta was forced into a rapport. He addressed Labour Party mass meetings; his Green Book was distributed by the thousands during the Malta Trade Fair. When Dom Mintoff issued an ultimatum to British troops to either pay higher rents for military facilities or quit the island altogether, it was Gaddafi who bankrolled Malta to the tune of about $3 million to replenish the government’s diminishing social security fund. 

But it wasn’t just Malta’s social security fund that was being bankrolled by Gaddafi. During the 70s and 80s, some of Malta’s biggest music stars were brought together to record a series of albums promoting Gaddafi’s political ideas. Joe Cutajar sang about the September Revolution, and Bayzo about the Jamahiriya. Mary Rose Mallia sang about the Green Book, and Renato about Gaddafi’s belief that sports should be for everyone.  

Some of these songs have appeared online over the past year, sparking an interest among enthusiasts of funk and disco, lost music, or political history more generally. Meanwhile, in Malta, LPs and cassettes of these albums are lying in old storage boxes, relics that tell the story of Malta’s modern history with neighbouring Libya. To understand this renewed interest in the music, and the place these albums hold in Malta’s cultural-political history, MaltaToday spoke with the artists that brought these albums to life, and to a Danish researcher putting these albums back online so they will never be forgotten. 

Malta’s superstars, Gaddafi’s message 

Alfred C. Sant and Ray Agius are a lyricist-composer duo that need little introduction. If you have never heard their names, you have certainly heard their biggest works: ‘L-Ewwel Tfajla li Ħabbejt’ or ‘Fjura fil-Kantina’. Their mark on the Maltese music scene has been indelible, and it must have been a no-brainer for the Libyan authorities of the time to pick them to write and compose some songs about Gaddafi’s ideas.  

According to Sant and Agius, there had been a call for local songwriters to promote the Libyan message. It all started from a radio station, Voice of Friendship and Solidarity (Leħen il-Ħbiberija u s-Solidarjeta), intended to spread the theories of the Libyan government in Malta. It was stationed in Rabat and transmitted to Malta and beyond. 

“The managing director asked for me and Alfred, and we met with him. The idea was to create an album of pop and contemporary songs with their political message; to do something professional and send a message through music,” Agius told MaltaToday.  

One of the biggest obstacles to do this was the fact that Malta had no proper recording studios. The few that existed at the time were far behind the technology available in proper studios abroad. “I told him that we’d need to go abroad to do this, and he said it’s not a problem,” Agius said. 

“We went to a studio in Rome to record the first album with some of the best singers in Malta at the time – and they left a good impression,” Sant told MaltaToday. “This opportunity was very welcome. It was nice to have someone invest in your talent.” 

Artists had access to a full orchestra, a 36-track recorder and some of Italy’s finest musicians. “At the time, we could only dream of these studios; just see them on television. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity,” Agius said. 

Three Maltese artists featured on the first album titled ‘Jamahiriya’: Tony ‘Bayzo’ Camilleri, Joe Cutajar, and Mary Rose Mallia. Camilleri and Cutajar have passed away, but Mallia is alive and well, and remembers every detail of this project.  

“We had so much fun. The song recordings were outstanding – it was like heaven hearing the musicians play, they were precise. Moreover, we had full access to the studio to stay as long as necessary to record the music because they [Libya] were funding everything themselves – and they paid us well,” she told MaltaToday.  

A little-known fact is that Renato was also asked to feature in this first album, but could not make it due to commitments singing at the Preluna. However, a couple of years down the line, Renato and Mary Rose Mallia recorded an album together, with financial aid from Libya, titled ‘L’epoca Del Popolo’. This album was recorded in Catania, and the two had the time of their lives.  

“It was a holiday!” Renato recalled fondly.  

“We finished everything in a day,” Mallia said. “We came prepared, so every time they called asking if we were ready yet, we would tell them not yet, and we’d explore Sicily.” 

At least 15 albums were recorded by Maltese artists under Libya’s patronage with songs in English, Maltese and Italian.  

 

 

Investing in Malta’s music scene 

This music recording experience was not just a side-opportunity for Maltese artists at the time. Rather, it paved the way for stronger investments in the music scene at the time. One of the most significant investments was at Smash Recordings. 

Joe Baldacchino, the managing director at Smash, told MaltaToday that many of the Libya-funded albums were recorded at their studios back in the day after he used his own cash to make significant investments in the studios. 

“We were going up to Italy to record each album, and if we wanted to record more of these albums, it was going to get too expensive. So, we made some investments in our own studio,” he said.  

Smash Recordings, the predecessor to Smash Communications, became the first professional studio in Malta to record international albums. A significant chunk of the Libyan-funded albums was recorded at the studio, including a rock opera called The Struggle (think Ġensna, but about Libya). 

This music project also put more money in the hands of local artists, who were paid Lm300 (around €700 today) for each song, according to Mary Rose Mallia. 

“It was triple what you would get paid in a hotel,” Renato added.  

Creating an archive 

Unless you were around to get your hands on one of these albums in the 70s and 80s, the music is hard to find online. Soon, this won’t be the case. Rune Agerhus, a Danish scholar, is building his own, free-to-use music platform where people will be able to listen to these albums at no cost.  

His interest in these Maltese albums all started when he stumbled upon a couple of tracks from one of the albums online. “I felt immediately drawn to it. It piqued my interest like no other politically-charged examples of music production had done it for me in a long, long time,” he told MaltaToday.  

He first learned about Leħen il-Ħbiberija u Solidarjeta and the Maltese albums in the spring of 2024. “I quickly thereafter began to surf the internet for the individual records to see if any were on sale. Lucky for me, most of them were, and over time I have managed to collect nine out of the original 15.” 

He started to digitise them in May 2024, and is still going at it. “Once I collect a record, I listen to it first to hear how it sounds, and before digitizing the whole record I would also be cleaning the records for dust and scratches, if need be, in order to enhance the quality of the playback.” 

Gaddafi bankrolling a dozen Maltese funk and pop musicians in the '70s and '80s to create music promoting his regime might just be the greatest thing he ever did.

I’ve just finished digitizing the latest record in my collection, and this track is a standout. A real banger. pic.twitter.com/DQCZrJW30L

— روني الدنماركي (@Aldanmarki) November 9, 2024

When Rune first started writing publicly about his interest in this music and the catalogue, he was contacted by Ben Coster, who lives in Malta and whose father was a personal friend of Bayzo. He texted Agerhus with some additional information and helped source most of the records. 

Coster told MaltaToday his interest in the albums is two-fold. “On the political end, the idea of Libya attempting to strengthen diplomatic ties in Malta by establishing an MoU and bankrolling popular Maltese musicians to sing about Jamahiriya is fascinating to me,” he said. “On the musical side, I genuinely believe that the records, in particular the first one, have some of the most well recorded, creative music to ever come out of Malta. Some of the tracks are spectacular both in terms of the instrumentation and vocal performances. Well-engineered too, which was a rarity for Maltese music at that time.” 

Coster also sees a certain absurdity to the music albums. “I find it funny and incredible that Mary Rose Mallia and Renato recorded music about Gaddafi's Third International Theory, Arab Unity, anti-colonialism, economic nationalism and other similar themes. If you knew their other work, it’s really bizarre to think about.” 

For now, the music will be released on Agerhus’s own online music streaming service. However, he is in touch with other people to explore a broader, international commercial release to streaming platforms like Spotify. 

“I think it would be suitable, as the original Radio Voice of Friendship and Solidarity was dedicated to giving the peoples of the third world an uplifting voice to an international audience. Besides my growing Libya/Malta collection, I have also collected songs from Oman, Iraq, and have my eyes set on records from Algeria and Palestine.” 

He explained that these albums are a reminder that Malta was once considered a non-aligned country after it gained independence from the British empire, pivoting eastward and forging relations with countries like Libya and the DPRK (North Korea). 

“[Leħen il-Ħbiberija u Solidarjeta] is very much emblematic of Malta’s eastward political alignment, and I would argue a testament to its openness and its willingness – at the time – to forge such close relationships with states usually considered “rogue” by the West. It’s a period in Maltese history I think most people outside the country aren’t really all too familiar with.”