In quest of the authentic E-African sound

By Sanaa & Culture

Naamala of CDEA (red shirt) with Haji at the screening of
'4 cityies 1 network' inside
Pan African FIlm Critique Club in June'15

Contemplating the cultural currency of East Africa one can notice the deficits in infrastructure pertaining to a thriving industry in film, fine art & music in the region.

“So it sorts of basically came out of an understanding that the vast majority of African music consumed outside of Africa. Is really well represented, you know Western African music is really well represented and so is South African. And so the understanding was, is, if somebody asks what the East African Sound is, nobody could put their finger on it…” Sam Jones affirms this with regard to our music export to the world, in the documentary prepared by Santuri Safari.

It was a Friday night I was climbing the stairs at the offices of CDEA-Culture & Development East Africa, leading to their upstairs terrace in Mikocheni B, Dar es Salaam. A cozy makuti roofed open space with a bar in one corner. As well some woven grass chairs in caramel which now were seated with an audience facing a projector screen on one wall, looking at the documentary ‘4 Cities 1 Network’ by Santuri Safari.

CDEA is an organization established in 2011 which sees to mobilize and support civil society in East Africa; to participate in evidence-based policy advocacy to place culture at the centre of human development.  One of their initiatives is a ‘Pan African Film Critique Club’ ran since 2012 which on the 26th  June was showing ‘4 Cities 1 Network’.

Rebbeca (left) one of the founders of Safari Santuri
with country co-ordinator TZ-Haji at the screening of
Santuri's documentaries inside CDEA

“Inside our film club we showcase films from innovative filmmakers across Africa which otherwise don’t feature in mainstream media, this in hope of educating our audience and fostering more growth in the film scene in Tanzania …” Naamala Samson-Civic Leadership Arts & Media personnel CDEA

On this night the documentary was presented by Rebecca Yeong Ae Corey & Haji Said co-founder and country coordinator TZ, respectively from Santuri Safari. Sifting through the images, the persons interviewed, the actions captured all showed an ongoing experiment. One that had the participants excited bubbling with ideas coming from DJ’s, Producers, Vocalists and Sound Engineers from all over East Africa. Also parts of Europe all meeting in the 4 cities of East Africa namely ‘Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kampala & Zanzibar.

Santuri Safari sees DJ’s in East Africa as the broadcasters’ & cultural connectors acting as curators of culture. Particularly the youth culture which currently propels reigning supremacy of the Naija sounds of West Africa and the Kwaito & House vibes of South Africa, in the media sound waves across the continent.

Santuri Safari pop up studio at the Doadoa festival
in 2014-photo courtsey of Bwette Daniel

It’s this same success that Santuri Safari looks to tap into for the East African music scene, by experimenting with DJ’s and Musicians via pop up studios. Which they’ve been putting up at odd locations close to festivals already they’ve been working at the Sauti za Busara, Bayimba, Doadoa & Jambo festivals across East Africa. This has now culminated to an album which you can listen to on sound cloud featuring various musicians and DJ’s from all over East Africa.

In ‘4 Cities 1 Network’ we see interactions with figures like Sam Jones from ‘Soundthread’; a consultancy organization for culture and development with clients like Alliance Francais, Goethe Institut, Music Mayday, CDEA and Hivos (main sponsors of Santuri Safari). Their services include training in music production and the installation of music studios.

We as well see DJ Rachael from Uganda, Producer Ambrose Akula ‘Dunga’ from Kenya, DJ’s Dread Steppa & Surah Mandava, Steve Kitubia of Ketebul Music, Tody Mwachukwu of CDR UK and many more music stakeholders.

Apart from ‘4 Cities 1 Network’ we also saw a documentary featuring Mimi Suleiman the musician from Zanzibar working under Santuri Safari earlier on this year. This gave a clear picture of what Santuri Safari does; we saw the rehearsals where DJ’s and musicians worked with Mim reinterpreting her track to a disco track. When she later performed it on stage with live instruments and the DJ’s, it was indeed a unique sound and the audience was riveted.

When the documentaries were done, the hosts from Santuri and CDEA invited questions and comments from the audience. Some audience revealed that they would like to hear this music in mainstream media.

To which Rebecca responded “We’re working to incite the media particularly radio to play this music, which is why we saw to work with DJ’s who have a wide outreach. However it’s been challenging as the sounds are new and like here in Tanzania there’s disconnect between musicians of this genre and that like bongo flava and traditional music or gospel causing difficulties in bridging the gap but we’re persistent and hopeful .So far from TZ we’ve worked with Leo Mkanyia, Msafiri Zawose, Makadem & Mim Suleiman…”

--Published in this weeks East African Newspaper--