Beni (music)

Beni, also spelled Mbeni, is an indigenized East African form of brass band music and dance. The word beni derives from the English word "band." Beni appropriated symbols of colonial authority such

History#

Brass band music was performed in German East Africa where it came to be part of the culture of competitions between neighbourhood cultural associations. Beni musicians used large military drums and brass instruments to interpret their new popular musical genre according to indigenous ngoma rhythms. Around 1914, the style spread to Tanga and Dar es Salaam. The first accounts of Beni in Nyasaland date to around 1918. During the First World War, Beni was danced by askari soldiers. Prisoners of war also danced it in the detention camp at Zomba in Malawi, and by detachments of the 2nd KAR when they returned to Nairobi. In Kenya, for example, wooden wind instruments were substituted for western trumpets. At the same time, in the late colonial period, Beni was a way for young people to express their independence. As Beni had never been as popular there as on the Swahili coast, the performance of a Beni band at the Sauti za Busara Festival 2009 was called an invented tradition for a tourist audience.

Beni (music)

History#

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