Music of Tanzania

Ngoma (dance)#

Ngoma (Bantu, meaning dance, drum, and celebration) The traditional forms of ngoma dancing prominently feature movements of the hips. It also features a large variety of instruments used, but most notable is the use of drums, specifically those that take the name from the style, ngoma drums. In more recent times, particularly after 1985, this has been changing with ngoma becoming both more modern, and fluid or creative.

Taarab (poetry)#

Taarab is a music genre popular in Tanzania and Kenya. It is stage-performed music that consists of sung Kiswahili poetry, usually about love, Taarab spread to the mainland and neighboring countries in the 1920s and rose to prominence in 1928 with the advent of the genre’s first star, Siti binti Saad. Prior to the rise of muziki wa dansi (jazz), taarab was usually listed to by a sitting and attentive audience. Following the World Wars, and even more so after independence, the audience participates by dancing, clapping, and singing. Lyrically, leading into and during the independence movements of the 1950s, taarab began to address politics.

Kwaya (choir)#

Kwaya is a choir and a large part of Tanzanian life. Kwaya was originally a purely European form of music brought to Tanganyika by the Europeans and practiced in churches to the accompaniment of only European instruments, usually in European language. Following independence in 1961, the TANU government understood the usefulness of kwaya for secular purposes to create a national identity, and promote education and ujamaa. One of the first actions TANU undertook for the new nation was to create schools to educate the population, which at that time had less 5% literacy due to absence of schools. TANU created an education system, building schools in every village and neighborhood, and chose to make kwaya an instrumental aspect of education, as it still is today. This proved hugely successful, with Tanzania enjoying high literacy reaching 80% literacy in 18 years after independence. Alongside the kwaya troupes, TANU created and promoted ngonjera, a form of poetry as a dialog, debate, and praise usually for the TANU party. After 1985 and onto today, kwaya is still widespread, particularly in schools, and church, and as a powerful influence in other forms of music, but the use of both kwaya and ngonjera as a political tool is significantly diminished today, rarely used by CCM. The central role kwaya continues to play in early and religious life has helped make it highly influential music in Tanzania. Most singers learn how to sing in choirs at a young age, and kwaya is frequently featured in other forms of music, especially the very popular modern bongo flava.

Muziki wa Injili#

Muziki wa Injili (lit. “gospel music”) is a genre of Christian church music in Tanzania that developed from church musical traditions dating back to the late 19th century. During this early period, church choirs mainly performed Western hymns that were translated into local languages. Beginning in the 1960s, some choirs started combining Christian lyrics with traditional Tanzanian melodies, often without instrumental accompaniment, although a few incorporated the harmonium or indigenous instruments such as drums and kayamba shakers. Unlike conventional church or art music, which is typically sung a cappella or accompanied by an organ or electronic keyboard, Muziki wa Injili is distinguished by energetic body movements, improvisational performance, and the incorporation of electric guitars and keyboards. The genre draws from a wide range of musical influences, including Congolese rumba, soukous, reggae, zouk, R&B, rap, salsa (charanga), and taarab. Rather than being formally written in staff or solfa notation, the music is predominantly “composed, transmitted and preserved orally and aurally”. Performances are given by church choirs as well as solo musicians who record and market their music independently. The genre’s increasing popularity has been supported by the growth of recording facilities, improvements in digital and internet technologies, and expanded opportunities for radio and television broadcasting, including stations owned by religious organizations.

Dansi (jazz / band)#

Dansi is a form of jazz or band music played for a dancing audience. With the great influence of Belgian Congo, and following the return of soldiers such as the King’s African Rifles, new musical ideas of styles, marches, and instruments grew in popularity. Mwalimu Nyerere spoke of focusing on African traditions rather than western traditions, and contrasted ngoma against muziki wa dansi, in his inauguration speech in on 1962. In practice, however, both artist, the public, and his TANU government embraced, used, combined, and created from both traditional dance and modern jazz to establish and promote nationalism and Ujamaa (African Socialism) for the new nation. While there are always differences from tribe to tribe, to club to club, the nature of dance music in Tanzania is rarely limited and usually inspired by a large variety of sources. and for the Best Female Vocalist category.

Mtindo#

A mtindo (pl. mitindo) is simply a rhythm, dance style, and fashion identified with a particular band and refers to their ngoma, often from a particular locality or people. For example, Sikinde is associated with Mlimani Park Orchestra, Msondo with the Juwata Jazz Band, Ndekule with the Orchestra Safari Sound, and Bongo is associated with Remmy Ongala and his Orchestra Super Matimila. Some bands maintain the same mtindo throughout their career, while others change with new personnel or popular preference.

Bongo Flava (pop)#

Bongo Flava is one of the newer Tanzanian genres, developed in the 1990s, and is a fusion genre. It is a continuation of muziki wa kizazi kipya, meaning “Music of the new generation” of the late ’80s and early ’90s. The current trend among Tanzanian music consumers has started changing from international popular music towards favoring products from their local artists who sing in Kiswahili. Popular artists include Kontawa, Barakah The Prince, Frida Amani, Maua Sama, Mavokali,Vanessa Mdee (Vee Money), Bill Nass, Diamond Platnumz, Harmonize, Jux, Alikiba, Shetta, Ben Pol, Lava Lava, Dully Sykes, Rich Mavoko, Rayvanny, Nandy. Some of the best known producers include Tudd Thomas, Mesen Selekta, Nahreel, S2Kizzy. and Yogobeats One of the key aspects of bongo flava that has helped its success is its ability to use such a wide variety of all music types even within the same song, making it appealing to both men and women, a much larger and all-encompassing audience. In a survey conducted in Morogoro asking Tanzanians what their favorite type of music to listen to, 3/4ths of women and 4/5th of men responded bongo flava. However, after bongo flava the difference in listening habits of men and women diverged enormously, with women preferring kwaya and men preferring foreign hip hop.

Etymology#

The name “Bongo” of Bongo Flava comes from Kiswahili usually meaning brains, intelligence, cleverness but can also mean mentally deranged. Bongo is the augmentative form of Ubongo, Kiswahili for Brainland. Flava is Kiswahili for Flavour. Ubongo is a term originally used, and in Tanzania still used, for the city of Dar es Salaam. Outside Tanzania, Ubongo is often referring to Tanzania. Ubongo as a term originated from a speech by President Nyerere in the late ’70s during a very difficult time following both the global fuel shocks of the ’70s and the Kagera war against Uganda. Mwalimu Nyerere spoke that only a nation using brains (using Kiswahili Ubongo for Brainland) could, and would, overcome the difficult challenges Tanzania was facing. Unfortunately, things became even worse for Tanzania, and by the early 1980s Dar es Salaam was calling itself mostly by the name Jua Kali (hot sun/world is spinning/dizzy) but also Ubongo. The term Ubongo was being used as a clever way to say both, survival in Dar es Salaam required brains and inelegance, but was also full of mentally deranged people. In 1981 musician Remmy Ongala founded a band called Matimila. Each band has a unique mtindo (style/fashion) and Remmy Ongala’s band Matimila named their mtindo “Bongo”. Remmy Ongala would become the most famous musician ever for Tanzania, reaching global fame working with English singer Peter Gabriel.

Kizazi Kipya#

In 1991, Tanzania hosted a hip hop competition called “Yo Rap Bonanza.” While most rappers were performing American songs word for word; Saleh Ajabry, a Tanzanian, wrote his own Swahili lyrics to a song based on Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” and won the competition. Hip hop has essentially provided Tanzanian urban youth and young adults with a means of expressing themselves and forming an identity, such as the conceptual identity of msafiri (the traveler), a classic subject borrowed from Swahili lore, and a recurrent theme in Dar hip hop. While Tanzania hip hop is influenced by American hip hop it is also distinctly localized. Prior to 2002 Kizazi Kipya, and its fans, were seen by most, particularly elders, as kihuni (culture of hooligans, trouble makers, drugs). With the release of ‘Machozi, Jasho na Damu’ (Blood, Sweat and Tears) in 2002 by Professor Jay, bongo flava reached widespread acceptance and appeal. Professor Jay’s landmark album contained messages that resonated, and connected, to and with both the youth and elders of society. Songs such as “Ndio Mzee”(Yes Elder) and “Siyo Mzee”(No Elder) were political and funny while respectful and meaningful. Along with the album as a whole it remains one of the most important and transitional moments in bongo flava’s acceptance and spread.

Hip hop#

Hip hop in Tanzania today is primarily a form of bongo flava. While Dar es Salaam is the center of Tanzanian and East African bongo flava and has a huge hip hop presence of its own, Arusha is seen as the center of hip hop in Tanzania and has a very large and important presence on hip hop for East Africa as a whole. As a greatly important international city home to many United Nations, African Union, East Africa Community, and many international NGO headquarters, the large international presence, along with many progressive organizations and dominant studios that have headed the city since 2000 like Grandmaster Records, has helped Arusha and its music scene has flourished with its festivals, community centers, and youth organizations. and many others who are heading Tanzania’s hip-hop music are from this city. There are other hip hop artists and crew like tamaduni music, kikosi kazi and artist like fid q, nikki mbishi, p the mc, dizasta vina, zaiid, the one incredible, mex cortez, cygon, mansu lii, nash mc, 6 o’clock, ghetto ambasador, songa, wakazi, afande sele, stamina, roma, jay moh, professor, chid benz as well as the upcoming artists like cado kitengo, man side, toxic fuvu, they conserve hip hop elements and originality, they are calling themselves “baba wa rap”, the fathers of rap", they are from dar es salaam, they have to freestyle session event like kilingeni msasani club.

Singeli#

Singeli is a music genre that originated in Kinondoni in north-west Dar es Salaam in the mid 2000s, and has since the late 2010s spread throughout Tanzania, and since 2020 the surrounding Great Lakes. In the early 2000s vigodoro, meaning all night parties, began being organized by women for their female relatives and friends in various uswahilini, particularly Manzese and Tandale. The parties involved playing cassette tapes of taarab music that other women would dance to. As vigodoro parties grew in popularity, MCs have been invited to come and perform over the cassettes. Msaga Sumu was one such MC and is considered one of the early founders of Singeli.

National anthem#

The Tanzanian national anthem is Mungu Ibariki Africa (God Bless Africa), composed by South African composer Enoch Sontonga in 1897. The tune is the ANC’s official song and later became the national anthem of South Africa. The melody is also the national anthem of Zambia. In Tanzania, Swahili lyrics were written for this anthem. - Another patriotic song, going back to colonial times, is Tanzania, Tanzania. The renowned Tanzanian music artist Mbaraka Mwinshehe (June 27, 1944 - January 12, 1979) was the most popular and original musician of Tanzania, culminating in contributions to the “African rumba” movement arguably originated in the Congo from decades prior.He and other Tanzanian musicians contributed a lot to the development of Soukous claimed to originate from DRC and Congo Republic only. Also, there was a greater influx of musicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), who entered into Tanzania as refugees to then earn a living and relocate there. But in recent decades, mainly from the mid-1990s, a new generation of musicians has emerged to create popular music that is predominantly Tanzanian in form. Bands like Twanga Pepeta (African Stars Band), among others, created new and original Tanzanian sounds.

Reggae and dancehall#

Jah Kimbuteh is the first major reggae star in Tanzania, beginning his career with Roots and Culture in 1985. Newer artists in the Tanzanian reggae genre include the Jam Brothers and Ras Innocent Nyanyagwa. At present, Ras Nas is considered one of the best-known reggae musicians from Tanzania. Ras Nas combines reggae, afro, and dub poetry. Many musicians work in bands that play at a hotel, usually led by a keyboard and including a rock-based sound.

Rock#

One of the most internationally famous rock musician, Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara into the Indian Parsi community of Stone Town, Zanzibar, moved to England after the Zanzibar Revolution over through British, and later Arab, colonial rule. He rose to worldwide fame as the lead singer, and a songwriter and instrumentalist, of the rock music group Queen. Neither Mr. Mercury, or the band Queen, ever performed in Tanzania. Their only African performance being the very controversial 1983 Works Tour where Queen disregarded UN Sanctions and performed in Apartheid South Africa to widespread condemnation by audiences and artists worldwide. The Mercury House, a former home of the Bulsara family, opened as a souvenir store in Stone Town, Zanzibar, in 2002. It opened as a museum to Freddie Mercury on 24 November 2019.

Distribution and access to music#

The mushrooming of FM music stations and reasonable production studios has been a major boost to the music industry in Tanzania. Contemporary artists like Diamond Platnumz, Harmonize, Juma Nature, Nandy, Rayvanny, Ali Kiba, Lady Jaydee, Mr. Nice, Mr. II, Cool James, Dully Sykes, Professor Jay and many others command a huge audience of followers in the country and neighbouring countries. More information about Tanzanian music and events can be found on the various web portals that have sprung up recently. Tanzania has an enormously high growth rate for internet technologies, estimated at up to 500% per year. Because costs for computers are still quite high, many users share connections at internet cafes or at work.naomba.com business directory, tanzaniadirectory.info Movie, and Sports information, and Arusha locality information all are part of an increasing number of websites dedicated to the region. Digital Tanzania music downloads are mostly done by free download websites and music platforms like iTunes, Google Music, etc.

See also#

• Sauti za Busara Festival
• Taarab
• Muziki wa dansi

External links#

• List of Top Tanzanian Songs – Tanzanian Music Website
• BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Music of Zanzibar – Taarab and Ikwan Safaa. Accessed 25 November 2010.
• BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Culture Musical Club and Bi Kidude. Accessed 25 November 2010.
• New Tanzania Music Songs. Accessed 25 November 2010.