Aug 28/06
Taarab, despite the drizzle
I guess all my praise of the Rough Guide’s world music compilations caught someone’s eye. A stack of their 2006 releases arrived at my door the other day courtesy of the World Music Network. Big thanks for the gift!
The Rough Guide’s Tanzania compilation is, as usual, a collection of tunes featuring a variety of styles from across the country. Among other things, you’ll hear Tanzanian taarab, Xplastaz hip-hop, East African dancefloor pop and the danceband sounds of old.
Aside from taarab and classic Ethiopian, I’m still pretty weak on my East African musical knowledge so most of the album was new to me. Two tracks stood out: Saida Karoli’s beautifully simple singing over guitar, and Mohammed Issa Matona’s taarab rock-out.
This morning it was raining a kind of pissy drizzle that one only finds in Paris, but you wouldn’t have known it from looking at me. Halfway to soaking, I was near-skipping down the street to work as I listened to Mohammed Issa Matona on repeat. Benn Loxo listeners will already know I have a soft spot for Zanzibar and all things taarab. I can’t say what it is about this tune that grabs me so much, but give it a listen.. give it three listens because I didn’t like it the first time either.. and you might just hear what I mean.
The voice of the second track, Saida Karoli, is totally new to me. Far from the coastal taarab, she sings in Haya, a lnaguage spoken in the north-west of the country. Karoli has a clean sound that’s currently sweeping the airwaves in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. She’s very young, too, so hopefully we’ll hear much more from her.
You can grab the Rough Guide to the Music of Tanzania at Amazon or any decent record shop.
Mohammed Issa – Matona Msumeno
Saida Karoli – Omukaile Kilinjwi
So, Matt, I received an engraved iPod for my 60th birthday (8/20) and am putting some african music on it – where better to get it from you?! K is still in Togo, will see her in NYC this weekend as she returns for her last semester in Boston. I do check in with this blog from time to time and have downloaded a lot of your music, which I enjoy a lot. Best regards to your folks, I think they are wonderful people – B
Oh, I had a preview from the Tanzania Guide. But strange collection for me. To many different music and no top hit.
I have some, i don’t know, with these “world music” collections. There are some western record people who choose what they sell us as the best from a special country. But if you look what the people from there really listen to and love it is often very different and mostly it is better music. Sorry, my experience.
Your first tune I like.
I like also the modern pop version of taarab, sounds very nice and typical. Or I love the sphere of their bongo flava when they build in taarab melodies or hindi style… I like that.
But I also love the (forgotten) tanzanian orchestre rumba dance music.
I see what you’re saying, but the reality is that Western audiences usually don’t like a lot of the popular contempoary music in countries outside their own. Most people outside of Senegal, for example, don’t like synth-heavy mbalax or Flamm J’s hiphop. Cubans don’t listen much to Buena Vista Social Club, and it’s not as if many Ghanaian teens groove to classic highlife on a daily basis. That doesn’t mean it’s not fantastic music worth bundling onto compilations.
That said, in general the Rough Guides don’t shy away from including local pop and urban music that wouldn’t necessarily appeal to Western audiences. That’s their strength as compared to, say, your generic African Dances! compilation. Their Urban Latino compilation is a good example of that. On the Tanzania disc you have classic dance, taarab, rnb, hiphop and pop representing, as far as I can tell, a wide spectrum of what’s really being heard down there plus some historical context. The “western record people” who put this together is a guy who’s lived there for over a decade who seems to have a very good idea of what appeals to Western audiences, plus what’s actually hitting jukeboxes on the street.
Beth, happy birthday! Glad you’re continuing to enjoy the music here. I’ll pass along the regards to the folks and cheers back to all of you. Say hi to K – sounds like she really enjoyed Togo.
Same rain in Brussels….
I really love taarab too. My favourite cd is “Bashraf” from Culture Musical Club. It is only instrumental taarab and is really great, very sentimental and dancing at the same time. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bashraf-Taarab-Instrumentals-/dp/B000050G67/sr=8-1/qid=1156849672/ref=sr_1_1/202-1238707-0044667?ie=UTF8&s=gateway)
And it’s a pleasure to read your site !
Buena Vista is the world music example at it best.
No Cuban listen to it. One western grabbed 100 years old music without seeing what is Cuba today. And that there are much more better son orchestres then Buena Vista. To sell an old melancholic charmed picture is more easy… the people like rotten houses and old rotten cars and sad melodies. Do Cubans like to life with this?
In Europe they needed three marketing periods till they had success with this record. And there is no music reason for this big success.
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Yes, you told another point. People in the diaspora listen sometimes to different music. The cabozouk in the US is a little different to the european. The soukous in the US is different to the Congo music in Europe…
I realized this also with haitian music. In Europe they listen a little different to the US. Maybe it has also to do with the distance, the mass of original music and the different culture arround…
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The tanzanian sampler. Yes, it has also to do what you know and what you expect…
On the other side, I’m not a friend of samplers. And mostly there are to less unknown good songs on a sampler, most I have on the solo albums which released before.
Hi Matt,
time to tell you that your blog for me has become a constant source of encouragement. I listen to your newest entries first thing in the morning and last thing at night at work. Keep on lighting up my day!
Thanks!
Richard