John Kariuki, Amos Ngaira, Moses Serugo, Evelyn Kiapi Matsamura and Dennis Msacky
17 March 2004
analysis
Dar es Salaam/Kampala/Nairobi — Nothing could have prepared the best observers of East African music for what happened from the mid-1990s.
In Tanzania, the scene was far from anything Douglas Paterson had predicted. The biggest thing in urban contemporary music all over Tanzania now is what the country's musicians, fans and DJs refer to as Tanzanian hip-hop.
Tanzanian hip-hop has been in development since the early 1990s. Now there seems to be no shortage of up-coming musicians gaining hip-hop and R&B popularity by the day. They perform live, which has led to the death of the discotheque culture that was beginning to take root and expand in Dar-es Salaam.
Halls and other venues that were popular as discotheques are filling up with crowds that want to watch hip-hop groups perform live.
Hip-hop acts are falling out of Dar-es-Salaam's ears. The first few months of last year alone, for example, saw the launch of four albums by popular performers, including Ugali by Juma Nature and Wanaume Kama Mabinti by Judith Wambura aka, Lady Jaydee.
The rise of hip-hop in Tanzania, as with their musical cousins in Kenya and Uganda, has been driven heavily by the growth and expansion of FM radio stations. And it's this that has saved the DJs, who have lost out in the discos, from starvation. Many of the most popular ones have found themselves jobs at the radio stations.
Thus former disco operator DJ Niga J, real name Masoud Masoud, is now the head music programmer at Radio Uhuru. He specialises in Zilizopendwa (golden oldies).
Another ex-club DJ, Bonnie Luv, real name Boniface Kilosa, has helped transform his former outfit, Clouds Entertainment Discotheque, into an FM radio station, Clouds FM.
As a club DJ, Bonnie Luv plied his trade at some of Dar's more popular disco venues such as the Motels Agip, Bahari Beach and the New African Kilimanjaro Poolside. Many of these venues no longer have a regular disco - thanks to the rise of hip-hop.
There are, however, many cautious voices about.
DJ Masoud believes that the Tanzanian fascination with hip-hop is just a phase and things will soon revert to how they were. He says people will rediscover the beauty of the old ways of Tanzanian music and hip-hop's popularity will fade.
The older Tanzanians are not cautious - they are downright critical, if not hostile. They feel hip-hop has not only polluted Tanzanian music as a whole, but it is also corrupting the youth. Not too long ago, one of the innovators of hip-hop Joseph Mbilinyi, stage name Mr II, was the focus of many attacks by parents who accused him of spoiling their children.
To Kenyan and Ugandan youngsters, the Tanzanian act they know most is also one of the biggest names on the music scene in Dar-es-Salaam - Khalid Mohammed - better known by his stage name, TID (Top in Dar). He became a true regional sensation with his song Zeze, ostensibly about his traditional Tanzanian harp, but according to his fans about a stunningly beautiful woman.
A less controversial, and quite successful approach to hip hop is being championed by hip-hop artistes such as the Wagosi WA Kaya group. Unlike the young hot musicians, they use the sound not to extol fun and casual sex but to make social commentary.
Wagosi WA Kaya have cornered the market for the older admirers with releases such as Tanga Kunani? (What's wrong with Tanga?). This song is about the economic morass that the Tanga Region of Tanzania, north of Dar es Salaam, is in today after seeing some prosperity in the past.
Another of the group's recent songs, Soka La Bongo (Brain Soccer), is a lament for the falling standards of the beautiful game in Tanzania, which was once a regional soccer powerhouse.
The rappers call for the resignation of the body in charge of Tanzanian football to pave the way for the reorganisation of national soccer, to stop Tanzanians from supporting foreign teams like Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool.
Today, Tanzanian musicians have East African musicians crossing the regional borders like their predecessors never did, bringing new music and new styles, and taking away new experiences.
Swahili, has become one of the new big links - even in Uganda where it was never a big deal until the late '80s.
When this crossing of the borders happened in the past, the cultural ambassadors were decidedly more intellectual.
A famous group used to be the Makerere University Travelling Theatre. The group's membership comprised of the likes of Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Ugandan Austin Bukenya and John Ruganda who all went on to literary fame.
Then barely three years ago, along came Saida Karoli who until then was largely unknown outside her home village of Bukoba, northern Tanzania on the southern shores of Lake Victoria.
Had anyone told the 26-year-old singer that in a year's time she would be on a tour of Kenya, wooing audiences wherever she went, she might have told them demurely their imagination was a little too vivid even for someone who wished her well.
And then she recorded her album Kani Chambua Kama Karanga. The CD's sales went off with a bang in Tanzania and soon she was in demand all over the place, touring and singing at packed concerts.
It was not too long before word of this new singing sensation began filtering through to Kenya and Uganda, where they were as eager as her compatriots to see and hear her.
Saida, the new face of choral and folk music, finally hit Kenya earlier this year and with her tours in Uganda (although the first was a sad affair in which she was swindled by nearly everyone) became the first East African female star of the new millennium, singing in the traditional music category, to conquer the three nations.
The story of her rise to this exalted position reads like a fairy tale.
There are many that see Saida's fame as signalling a return to the roots for East African popular music.
Another member of this new musical elite in the region is Kenya's 29- year-old Suzanne Owiyo, whose debut solo recording, Kisumu 100 like Saida's music sold in great numbers all over East Africa. Though not quite as big a sensation as Saida in terms of broad acceptance, Suzanne too appears set for acclaim from across the borders.
Saida and Karoli are by no means pioneers in this field. Though they are the current biggest thing in their field, this movement can be traced back to almost a decade ago when young artistes began to see the value in adapting what some call roots music, to distinguish themselves from the majority of their colleagues who were busy trying to sound like US pop stars, and not succeeding as well as the real McCoy.
One of the groups that led this movement was the Kenyan group Kalamshaka whose radio release Tafsiri Hii (Explain This) became a runaway success on the FM radio stations and was in demand in clubs and pubs around Kenya.
The success of this music got then budding producer, Tedd Josiah thinking that Swahili could very well be the best language for authentic East African rap. After spending six months fooling around Tanzania, Josiah returned to Kenya to put his beliefs to the test.
Speaking of the same era, Mahmud Juma of Sync Sound Studios where it all began, is still excited by the idea which he followed through and has now seen come to fruition in the creation of a hip-hop sound that is unique to Kenya.
"The first step was to convince the young artistes that use of Swahili or their mother tongues gave them a distinct edge over imported variations of pop music. When they finally did, we were all set for a major breakthrough." Juma explained.
Meanwhile, rappers from the region started collaborating on musical projects whose results can today be heard on CDs and compilation albums all over the region. Among the first regional collaborators were the Kampala rappers, Kawesa, who came to Kenya's Sync Sounds, and soon were selling their sound all over Uganda and attracting fellow Ugandans to record their type of music in Nairobi.
The next major collaboration involved Uganda's big name Chameleone, and Kenya's Red San. They not only recorded together but toured together and were a sell-out everywhere they went in the two countries.
Uganda has not fully recovered from the lost years, so many of its musicians continue to travel to Kenya to record.
In recent times, the first artiste to move to Kenya to pursue his music career was Richard Kaweesa. A chance encounter with Ted Josiah saw him clinch a low cost record deal and produce a fusion of Luganda and Kiswahili in an attempt to create an East African sound.
It was Richard Kaweesa who encouraged Bebe Cool, who in turn encouraged Chameleone to try out Nairobi. They called themselves the Basement Crew. However, the collapse of Sync Sounds left Bebe Cool all but penniless on the Nairobi streets.
He fell out with Chameleone who aligned himself with the Kenyan artiste Red San. This collaboration saw the release of Chameleone's first track Bageya. Lucas Lukedo, one of the founders of the Ogopa DJs label produced this track. Bebe Cool and Peter Miles had also recorded at the same studios.
Similar collaborations were happening with East Africans in the diaspora. By far and away the most famous and popular of these groups, was the Sweden-based East African trio, of Swahili Nation.
With each one of the group's members coming from one of the three East African countries, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, the group was seen as leading the way with a music that truly knew no regional borders.
Their memorable hit song, Hakuna Matata, is still played to great appreciation by many at clubs, discos and on the radios. The song put the spotlight squarely on contemporary urban pop music in the Swahili language.
From this trio came the late, lamented Cool James, who after breaking away from the group returned to his native Tanzania to launch a career that was headed for great things before it was cut short by a fatal road accident.
Spurred on by the success of Swahili Nation performing hip-hop in Kiswahili, Cool James recorded a jazzed up cover version of Simba Wanyika's massive hit from the 1970s, Sina Makosa (I'm not to blame) which he reworked with drum-beat, rap lyrics and the song's original chorus as his hook-line.
"I want to show our brothers and sisters that we need not use American music to rap to," he was reported as having said soon after this song, which went on to become a runaway success in the region, was released.
Cool James followed this initial success with other hits based on the same formula, but sadly died before he could take it much further.
As we already noted, in Kenya similar attention was being given to roots music. The real breakthrough in terms of experimentation with this music must be said to have been by the Gidi Gidi and Maji Maji album Ismarwa which incorporated elements of modern hip hop with influences from Luo traditional music.
In what was undoubtedly his most ambitious project until then, producer Tedd Josiah hired traditional Luo musicians to recreate a musical atmosphere for the pop duo's rap in Dholuo.
The massive attention, air play and media support that the album attracted seemed to confirm audiences were ready to hear rap in either Swahili or their native languages, and music even in Dholuo or Kikuyu could cross language boundaries and achieve not just regional but international admiration.
Even more remarkable was the fact that these musicians were not just singing love songs, but were talking to their audiences about real life issues such as crime and social inequity.
However, though this music had support on FM radio, and music television programmes, in the nightclubs and discos it was not doing much in the way of album sales.
Kenya's Ogopa DJs think they may have found a way around this sales jinx. Last year they were all the rage around the region with albums that featured popular musicians singing to tracks downloaded from the Internet.
By doing so they were saving on input into the writing of the music and in the process created a new genre of Swahili language, feel good club anthems.
The Ogopa concept has, however, drawn mixed reactions with music critics arguing that such an approach to music and recording does not augur well for creativity.
Producer Babu Kanyottu is happy to disagree with the nay-sayers and suggests that the point was to draw away audiences and musicians from blindly rapping to US tracks. "It may not be original music, but it has helped to draw our youths away from American music," he said.
This theory holds water until you realise the biggest song in Kenya in 2002 and the start of last year was Gidi Gidi and Maji Maji's Unbwogable a rap using a very definite American hip-hop backing track.
The more things change the more they remain the same, a famous dead person once said. Going back to the roots to create contemporary music had been done before. In the late 1970s and early 1980s groups based mainly in Nairobi and drawn from the region were the main exponents.
The most famous of these groups was the short-lived but popular Makonde. It borrowed its name from the world famous Tanzanian and Mozambican sculptors, and though mainly made up of Kenyans of African and European origin also had a Ugandan member, Sammy Kasule, to lend to its regional character.
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