MUSIC FESTIVAL 2005

 

By Bro. Edwin Mpokasye, SDS

 

It is just a thought about music. Tanzanian musician are  not well represented around the World, but the urge is this  we want them to be present and win the audience all of the world, with there music of Bongo Flava which means  to survive in the City of Dar es Salaam you need brain.

 

 

0.1 Introductions:

 

The Gregorian University of Rome, through the Centre for the Interdisciplinary in Social Communication (CICS), in collaboration with the cultural department of the City of Rome, will organize a weeklong music festival to mark the celebration of “Africa meets Europe through music.” And this year the invited young musicians are from Tanzania.

One of the talented young Italian musicians, Carmen Consoli of Italy will participate and introduce these young musicians to the Roman audience, and the three groups will present Tanzanian musicians, who will play dance music (Bongo flava and Taarabu and traditional dance).

a) Location: The concert will be held outside of the Gregorian University at the Piazza della Pilotta. And the guest of honour will be the Director of CICS. This concert is in solidarity with the African countries for their contribution to the music world and its aim is to give exposure to the Tanzanian musician in the outside world.

The project was born out of a desire of the centre to offer the Roman audience an adventure that will be pervaded with an unforgettable mood and not just a simple Bongo flava music, but rather an occasion to attend an evening full of magnificent scenery of African imagination and the artists themselves who are coming to Italy for the first time. The sunset light will still paint the sky when at 9 o’clock p.m.; the Bongo Flava will finally meet Rome. Special service for the handicapped people will be provided

b) The stage: The giant made of steel, wood and cables, about 20 meters wide. The most important part of the stage is represented by the roof, a structure able to support more than 10 tons of weight, divided between the video equipment

0.2 History of Tanzanian Music

The first popular music came to Tanzania in the early 1930’s, when the Cuban Rumba was widespread. Tanzanians organized themselves into dance clubs like the Dar Es Salaam Jazz Band, which was founded in 1932. Local Bands at the time used brass and percussion instruments, later adding strings. Bands like Morogoro Jazz and Tabora Jazz (despite the name, these bands did not play Jazz) were formed. Competition was commonplace, a legacy of native ngoma (dance) societies and colonial beni brass bands.

Independence came in 1961, however, and three years later the state patronage system was set up, and most of the previous bands fell apart. Musician were paid regular fees, plus a percentage of the gate income, and worked for some department of the government. The first such band was the Nuta Jazz Band, which worked for the National Union of Tanzania.

The 1970’s saw the polarization of a laid - back sound popularised by Orchestra Safari Sound and Orchestra Maquis Original. These groups adopted the motto (Kamanyola bila jasho” (dance Kamanyola without sweating). Maquis hailed from Lumbumbashi in the southeastern Republic of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Moving to Dare es Salaam in the early 70s. This was a common move at the time, bringing elements of Soukous from the Congo basin. Marquis introduced many new dances over the years including one Zembwela a style of slow dancing

In 1990s things had started to change in Tanzania instead of people liking the exported music from outside especially from Congo. Young people started to form their own group as we are going to describe in this short project.

 

a) Objective of Music:

Before describing the history of Tanzanian music, it is better first to give a definition, based on eight axioms, which have been given by Tagg, from whom we take our definition:

“Music is the form of interhuman communication in which human organised, non-verbal sound is perceived as vehiculating primarily affective (emotional) and/or gestural (corporeal) patterns of cognation” (P.Tagg: Dispensa, 2005: 4).

In concerted simultaneity and collective identity, music takes a place in communication that involves sound events between groups and its members, between groups and an individual or between two groups, when they sing and play.

According to Lull quoted by Roy Shuker (1998: 59), music is passionate sequencing of thought and feelings that expresses meaning in a manner that has no parallel in human life; it produces sense and conveys meaning.

The communicative role of music: is to convey the information with others with effects as in Laswell classic model and has a role of negotiating of meaning with others, of implicit political message (protest song). More implicit level, ideologies of romance, personal and social identity

In the structural music of Tanzania it has its own objectives, it is a music, which also refers to musical codes by acting as social, which connotes, and reflects the sound technology and its own identity and is universal.

 

2.0 Genre: Mtindo (style)

A mtindo (plural. Mitindo) is simply a rhythm, dance or style identified with a particular band. Sikinde, for example, it is associated with Mlimani Park, and is derived from the ngoma (musical events held by the Zaramo tribe which lives in Dar es Salaam). Some bands maintain the same mtindo throughout their career, while others go along with personal or popular preferences.

Bongo Flava. Swahili rap from Tanzania is found on the streets of Dar es Salaam. It is a look at what musicians in present urban East Africa think and dream about. Bongo Flava is the name of a Hip-Hop influenced music, which— unnoticed by the rest of the world—has become the best selling music in East Africa today. It is the music of the post-socialism era channelled by a wave of new private radio stations. The Bongo Flava comes from the Kiswahili word for brains. Bongo is the nickname of Dar es Salaam’s metropolitan city. It means that you need brains to survive there. Tanzanian youth started rapping in the 1980s fascinated by black US Hip Hop. They soon developed their way of doing it and today the music has become a style characterized by the use of local melodies, beats, topics and their own language Kiswahili. I don’t think that anyone could have an English hit in Tanzania nowadays. The music both touches and tackles social problems and the fashion they sport, their music comes from poorer quarters of Dar es Salaam.

The musician they will sing among these songs

1.   Unlawful wife by Max Bushoke

2.   Consolation – Lady Jay De

3.   Regina – Lady Jay De

One of their songs is about unfaithful wife; the lyrics go like this (translation is mine) from Swahili to English

A musician Max Bushoke starts his song like this:

I had a wife, everybody knows her,

She is beautiful; like an Angel,

Months passed by, we had a baby

He looks like an Arab, I suspected and questioned,

She told me, he looks like his granddad,

And then came another child,

 This time she looked like a Chinese, when I questioned

 She told me she resemble, like her grandmother,

Then I said somebody is stealing my wife.

Chorus: Ooh my mother if you were you, what you were going to do x 8

I sleep on the floor, my wife on bed, when I sleep on bed I am number 4 joker

I clean the floor, the clothes, it is not that I like. But what can I do

Chief Rumanyika, you don’t see this, Mr Bizzman come and help me.

Also they will sing other songs.

 

Taarabu

Taarabu, as a popular genre, descends from Islamic roots, using instrument from Africa (percussion), Europe (guitar), and Arab Middle East (qanum and East Asia (taishokoto) it is sung poetry and is an intricate part of wedding music, and is associated with the coastal areas like Lamu in Kenya and Zanzibar. According, to the Garland Encyclopaedia of African Music, is derived from an Arabic word meaning “joy, delight, pleasure” Which is also sung in Kenya and Tanzania, East Africa.(http://tcd freehosting.net/djembemande/taarabu.html).

Taarabu is often said to have and Egyptian origin, due to the long popularity of the Ikhwani Safaa Musical Club. While the Egyptians influence is undeniable, coastal East Africa is a cultural melting pot and has absorbed influences from across the Indian Ocean and even further abroad. The first superstar, indeed the first Swahili superstar, was Siti bint Saad. Beginning in 1928 she and her band were the first from the region to make commercial recordings.

Over the next few decades, bands like the Cultural Musical Club and Al-Watan Musical Club kept taarabu at the forefront of the Tanzania scene the taarabu ensemble featuring two small drums, bass, violins and dancers using claves and maracas. More recently, modern taarabu bands like east African Melody have emerged, with related backbiting songs for women called mipasho.

Recording industry: Tanzanian recording industry suffer mainly from pirates who copy the songs and produce the CD’s in Nairobi, Kenya which robes the artists the genuine money income they deserve.

 In Tanzania there was no recording industry for many years, Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam has played a big part in helping the artists and to record with them, once or twice a year the bands were given a chance to come to its one track studio for a session at a negligible sum and the bands in turn would receive publicity.

Two musicians Dr. Hukwe Zawose (dead in 2003) who released the album Chibite with (Real World, 1995) and Spirit of Africa (Real World), in which he talks about AIDS, played his traditional Limbo (giant thumb piano) Izezi (traditional violins), filimbi (traditional flute) and nguga (ankle bells).

Remmy Ongala is another musician from Tanzania. These two musicians have gone far to record with Peter Gabriel (WOMAD Company).

The African musicians agree very easily to record their songs, in traditional Africa it is rarely to see a musician who thinks that his music is his sole means of livelihood, and this has led to exploitation by some companies (Bebey, 2000: 22).

The Bongo Flava music is produced by Out|here recording company in Munich, Germany. There is no record available showing the sale of this CD.

END

 Bibliography:

1.     Musica,  Comunicazione e Cultura (Dispensa 2, 2005)

2.     Shuker Roy. 1998 Key concepts in Popular Music:Routledge, 29 West 35th, New York, NY 1001

3.     Tanzania CD Compilation

4.      http://tcdfree hosting.net/djembemande/taarabu.html

5.     Bebey Francis. 1990: African Music: Peoples Art.

6.     Werner Graebner (1994 and 1996)

 

NAME: EDWIN MPOKASYE

MATRICOLA 152507

DURATION : 5 MIMUTES

AUDIENCE: PARENTS

  

 

PROCESSED MESSAGE: The role of parents in educating young people, on how they can behave when they grow up.

 

 

TREATMENT: The young people are caught up between modernization and the past which way to follow. Can they take both of them either change or not.

Script:

VIDEO                                                                                   AUDIO

 FADE IN FROM BLACK                                                              Sound of bird singing

 CREDIT APPEARS

SCENE 1: PAN L TO R OUTSIDE VLS                                        Sentimental music

                2: CAMERA FACING CARS IN LS                               SFX Sound of cars

                 3: CAMERA FACING BUS STATION IN MS             Loud music

                  4:CAMERA FACING THE BUS IN OBLIQUE

                   5: CAMERA FACING PETER IN CL                                                      

                   6:  FATHER AND PETE IN CL

SCENE 2: CAMERA IN MS                                                          SFX MUSIC

                1: PETER IN MS

                  2:FATHER MEET PETER IN   MS

                  3: MS

                  4: CAMERA ON FATHER COLLAPSE IN CU

                  5:  CAMERA ON AMBULANCE IN MS                     SFX AMBULANCE

                                   

                  6:PETER IN ALONE IN MS

 

SCENE 3: CAMERA PETER /FATHER IN MS                          Sentimental music                                        

               1. HORIZONTAL  TO FACE PETER

                2: MS CAMERA FACING PETER FACE

                3: MS COMPOSITION

                 4: PETER/FATHER IN MS

                  5: PETER IN CU

               

Video Storyboard Planning Sheet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Act One                                               Act 2                                                   Act 3