The underground sound of Dar es Salaam
Lo-fi productions with hectic drum patterns, frenzied dancers, records banned by the authorities: Adam Rodgers Johns dives into the DIY world of singeli, the new music culture shaking the legs of Tanzania’s urban youth.
In December 2017 the Ugandan music collective Nyege Nyege Tapes inaugurated their new vinyl series with a release whose frenetic flows make the majority of dance music heard in the UK sound tame in comparison. The Sounds of Sisso provides the listener with an introduction to the electronic singeli sound — the latest mutation of explosive underground rhythms from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city.
Since attending one of their parties in Kampala, their Ugandan base, I have been following the Nyege Nyege musical collective and have watched them establish themselves as one of the best musical collectives in the East Africa region in recent years. This latest release demonstrates their commitment to showcasing underground, non-commercial African electronic music (though they are by no means tied to this).
Here is a link to the original cassette where you can listen to the record, which features various MC’s and producers from the SISSO crew.
Arriving in Dar es Salaam, I was aware of the underground scene and its associations with raucous performances in the city’s poorer suburbs, areas known as Uswahilini (area of the Swahili) following colonial spatial urban divisions (Uhindi and Uzunguni being the more affluent areas where Indians and Europeans lived respectively). While living in the city I actively sought this live performance, which remained elusive but within tantalising reach: once I was passed by a bus filled with frenzied musicians and dancers emitting the sound only to be advised by those around me to ignore those “low-lifes.”
The singeli sound is characterised by repetitive, fast-paced loops overlaid with rapid MC-ing, and has been labelled as Afro-punk due to its DIY attitude and experimental use of sound. In this way it has similarities with other underground African urban sound cultures — kuduro in Angola, balani in Mali — but it has its own distinctive style that is, in the words of one of the founders of Nyege Nyege Tapes: “completely bonkers.”
A key influence on the singeli sound is mchiriku music, which emerged out of the traditional ngoma (music and dance) of the Zaramo ethnic group, who were the original inhabitants of Dar es Salaam before mass urbanisation. The Zaramo are notorious for their lively ngoma, and in the 1990s mchiriku performances were banned by the authorities because of their association with drugs, sex and violence. However, the group Jagwa Music brought mchiriku music to a global audience in 2012 with their album “Bongo Hotheads”.
Mchiriku music is lead by intricate drumming rhythms played at breakneck speed, with the melody being played on second-hand Casio keyboards. The keyboard signals changes of pace and pattern between the different sections of a piece, and in this way is akin to the nzumari (a Zaramo oboe-type instrument). The lyrics typically deal with social and political issues facing the youth such as unemployment, unfaithful partners, AIDS, drugs and alcohol.
I saw Jagwa Music perform live at the Sauti za Busara music festival in Zanzibar, and while there was some moshing during their show, the setting in a 17th century fort as part of an international music festival felt far removed from the street performances from which the music was born. The mchiriku music popularised by Jagwa Music already seems outdated compared to the electronic singeli scene, which shares core mchiriku features such as the driving tempo and lo-fi Casio keyboard lines, but with the added utilisation of new technologies.
Singeli has quickly overtaken Bongo Flava as the music of choice amongst Tanzania’s youth, with artists like Mani Fongo being blared from sound systems all over the city. His well known hit ‘Haina Ushemeji’ was recently among the 13 songs controversially banned by the Tanzanian regulatory authority for containing content which apparently violated “Tanzanian norms and values”. The lyrics typically contain advice on how to survive in the city and provide a commentary on social life — some of it inflammatory, some less so — in this single from the release, Makaveli praises finding a girlfriend of good character who he loves despite her lack of social media presence.
Overall, the manic kinetic energy of the Sounds of Sisso release does justice to the environment from which this underground sound emerged, while epitomising the meaning of ‘nyege nyege’ in the Luganda language: “the uncontrollable urge to move.”
Its an urge they’re keen to share. Nyege Nyege’s focus on the exciting underground sound cultures in the East Africa region and beyond saw them hold the first edition of their annual music festival in 2015, which takes place at the source of the river Nile near Jinja, a few hours drive from Kampala. The festival embodies the collective’s focus on establishing regional as well as international collaborations (such as with London’s NTS Radio), and was recently listed by the Guardian as one of the top international festivals to visit. This year’s festival will take place between 6–9th September.
Artists from the Nyege Nyege Tapes label are currently touring Europe, and Sounds of Sisso can be seen in London at Cafe OTO on April 6th. See you on the dance floor!
