We’re enjoying being back in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this time with a group of 24 intrepid Afroopop travelers for our music and culture visit to Tanzania and Zanzibar. Our first night of music featured a battle of Swahili rumba bands—Mlimani Park and Msondo Ngoma both 12- or so piece orchestras featuring multiple intertwining guitars, blaring trumpet and saxes, and killer, four-man vocal front lines.
Both venues we visited were packed. And the locals would dance up to us on the floor, inviting us to dance with them. What a delightful opening night of music and dance! And that was just the beginning…
On Friday we drove to Bagamoyo, about two hours north of Dar to visit the Zawose family, champions of Wagogo music. Msafiri Zawose, son of the patriarch Hukwe Zawose, a giant of Tanzanian traditional music up to his death in 2003. Msafiri and Zawose Reunion have rekindled the flame performing in Europe and Japan in the short 18 months since the band formed. Msafiri greeted us and gave us a tour of the family compound where some 50 family members currently live. Then it was music time, and the music was as hypnotic and sublime as we remember, maybe even better.
Other highlights of our music dive into Dar included a showcase of the Dar Modern Taarab group and a high-energy set of the newly popular Singeli music style, with the singer G3 and his deejay and percussionist. Everywhere we went, we have been invited to join dance circles next to the stage. Pure delight.
Many of us also went to church on Sunday morning for a rousing display of Tanzanian gospel, and a rather wise self-help sermon, complete with vend diagrams and a PowerPoint presentation.
We’re now in Zanzibar for the 21st Sauti Za Busara festival. More to come…
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