Valentine Marc Nkwame
10 January 2009
Arusha — Aged only 15, Darsh Pandit, a student at the International School of Moshi, Arusha campus doesn't exactly play with toys in his free time.
The aspiring producer plays real musical instruments, strumming on various guitars after school. Give Darsh a studio (or at least allow him into one) and he will rock (and possibly roll) the world. At the moment, however the young producer is set at hip-hopping the country from Arusha.
Actually he even plays with music tools at ISM where he happens to be the official school drummer and percussionist and whenever the situation calls for it, young Pandit gets to spin-the-wheel as a DJ. Music seems to be in his blood so it was no surprise when he churned out a debut album last December.
For the last three months of 2008 Darsh was working in Studio with five 'underground' artists of Arusha and managed to produce eight tracks for them all of which were compiled in a recent released album on CD format.
While the legendary Mozart achieved his ultimate classic music composition when aged only 7, this young boy from Arusha intends to accomplish the same but this time a notch-higher, as producer.
Unlike Mozart, Darsh Pandit however is not seven, but at a tender age of 15-year-old he is still a 'baby' and to accomplish the feat of producing five local artists to churn out eight studio recordings whose compilations have resulted in a nine tracks Hip-hop and Bongo-Flava album, the first from Arusha in recent years.
Darsh has also launched a Music philanthropy project under which he intends to recruit, produce and promote local artists.
Darsh is one of the few young people who are lucky enough to live their dreams right from their childhood. Now, Darsh's dream happens to be music. Even better, both his parents not only support him, but also turned up during the launching of his maiden effort.
The soft-speaking genius, according to his father, Bhadresh Pandit has been playing guitar and piano ever since he was in diapers. He started playing drums in school.
"I grew up loving music precisely rock-and-roll, the screeching guitars inspired me to try my hands on strings then I later learned to play the piano and drums," he said. Apparently, young Darsh is also the official percussionists at the ISM.
His debut studio album 'Nasimama' was launched at the Mawingu Club of Arusha last Sunday. It features six local hip-hop artists going by the names of 'Bunduki, Gusto, Regan, Stretcher, GMG and Emirodiga, each of them performing on one or two tracks in the CD.
All songs (mostly rap chants) were done in Swahili and recorded at the Family Studios in Arusha. Darsh did most of the production works and arrangement including playing rhythm and bass guitars on some of the tracks. Actually he even designed the sleeve. The project took them three months.
His music teacher, Miss Andrea Gorman is proud of him but modestly adds that she had nothing to do with Darsh's recent achievement; "He did it all by himself," she said.
"We hope his project is going to stand out among various others from ISM schools all over the world and give Tanzania a good name," she said.
Darsh intends to go beyond the maiden school project. "From now henceforth I will be recruiting local 'underground' artists and assist them in production works and promotional efforts," he declared. Watch him carefully, he will rock you!
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