Live from Dar es Salaam

Alex Perullo

Description

Finalist, 2012 African Studies Association Ogot Award

View accompanying audiovisual materials for the book at Ethnomusicology Multimedia

When socialism collapsed in Tanzania, the government-controlled music industry gave way to a vibrant independent music scene. Alex Perullo explores the world of the bands, music distributors, managers, and clubs that attest to the lively and creative music industry in Dar es Salaam. Perullo examines the formation of the city's music economy, considering the means of musical production, distribution, protection, broadcasting, and performance. He exposes both legal and illegal strategies for creating business opportunities employed by entrepreneurs who battle government restrictions and give flight to their musical aspirations. This is a singular look at the complex music landscape in one of Africa's most dynamic cities.

Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Names and Interviews
Video Clips in the EVIA Digital Archive
1. Kumekucha (It is Daylight/ Times Have Changed)
2. Shall We Mdundiko or Tango?: Tanzania's Music Economy, 1920-1984
3. Live in Bongoland
4. The Submerged Body
5. Radio Revolution
6. Analog, Digital . . . Knobs, Buttons
7. Legend of the Pirates
8. Everything is Life
Appendices:
A: Descriptions of Tanzanian Genres of Music
B: List of Tanzanian Radio and Television Stations
C: Clubs with Live Shows in Dar es Salaam
D: List of Tanzanian Promoters Organized by City

Notes
References
Discography
Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• MUSIC
• África
• Multiple signal classification
• Ethnomusicology
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 27 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253001504
• Langue: English

Extrait

Live from Dar es Salaam
AFRICAN EXPRESSIVE CULTURES
Patrick McNaughton, editor
Associate editors
Catherine M. Cole
Barbara G. Hoffman
Eileen Julien
Kassim Kon
D. A. Masolo
Elisha Renne
Zo Strother

Ethnomusicology Multimedia (EM) is a collaborative publishing program, developed with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to identify and publish first books in ethnomusicology, accompanied by supplemental audiovisual materials online at www.ethnomultimedia.org .
A collaboration of the presses at Indiana, Kent State, and Temple universities, EM is an innovative, entrepreneurial, and cooperative effort to expand publishing opportunities for emerging scholars in ethnomusicology and to increase audience reach by using common resources available to the three presses through support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each press acquires and develops EM books according to its own profile and editorial criteria.
EM s most innovative features are its dual web-based components, the first of which is a password-protected Annotation Management System (AMS) where authors can upload peer-reviewed audio, video, and static image content for editing and annotation and key the selections to corresponding references in their texts. Second is a public site for viewing the web content, www.ethnomultimedia.org , with links to publishers websites for information about the accompanying books. The AMS and website were designed and built by the Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities at Indiana University. The Indiana University Digital Library Program (DLP) hosts the website and the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music (ATM) provides archiving and preservation services for the EM online content.
Live from Dar es Salaam
POPULAR MUSIC AND TANZANIA S MUSIC ECONOMY
Alex Perullo
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail [e-mail]
2011 by Alex Perullo
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perullo, Alex.
Live from Dar es Salaam : popular music and Tanzania s music economy / Alex Perullo.
p. cm. - (African expressive cultures)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35605-5 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-22292-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Popular music-Tanzania-Dar es Salaam-History and criticism. 2. Music trade-Tanzania-Dar es Salaam-History. I. Title.
ML3503.T348P43 2011
781.6309678-dc22
2011004798
1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12 11
FOR Joan, Noah, and Zachary
Contents
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTE ON NAMES AND INTERVIEWS
VIDEO CLIPS ON THE ETHNOMUSICOLOGY MULTIMEDIA WEBSITE
1 Kumekucha (It is Daylight / Times Have Changed)
2 Shall We Mdundiko or Tango? Tanzania s Music Economy, 1920-1984
3 Live in Bongoland
4 The Submerged Body
5 Radio Revolution
6 Analog, Digital . . . Knobs, Buttons
7 Legend of the Pirates
8 Everything Is Life
APPENDIX A . Descriptions of Tanzanian Genres of Music
APPENDIX B . List of Tanzanian Radio and Television Stations
APPENDIX C . Clubs with Live Shows in Dar es Salaam
APPENDIX D . List of Tanzanian Promoters Organized by City
NOTES
REFERENCES
DISCOGRAPHY
INDEX
Preface
Music is research into the essence of things.
- REMMY ONGALA
On a warm July afternoon in 2005, I walked with friends in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As we neared the center of the neighborhood, we heard drumming and singing coming from a sandy field where local children play soccer throughout the day. It was unusual to hear music in the middle of the afternoon, particularly on a workday. After a few minutes, we found a crowd of a hundred people encircling a group of traditional ngoma musicians and dancers engaged in performance. The group used cylindrical, hand-made drums and sang but also added a whistle in the style of the popular Congolese rumba artists that perform in the city s nightclubs. The songs were about health issues, and the male singer gave advice on ways to take care of oneself. During a break in the singing, a mixed group of men and women in matching outfits began to dance. Their steps were based on a traditional ngoma called mdundiko with many added variations drawn from contemporary dance routines. The crowd watched with great interest as the dancers took turns showing off their moves before returning into choreographed patterns that followed the drum rhythms. For an afternoon, it was a wonderfully entertaining and educational break in the day.
Given the unusual time and setting of the event, I asked about the performance. Why would a group perform for free in front of a large audience in the middle of a weekday afternoon? There are so many pressures to make a living in the city that it was odd to see a free concert where no money was exchanged between audience and performers. I came to learn that a local non-governmental organization (NGO) had hired the ngoma group to perform in certain areas of Dar es Salaam where health concerns were gravest. The group s job was to compose songs that would teach listeners about certain diseases and then use entertainment to keep their attention while they sung about either prevention or remedies. Drawn to the free concert, people eagerly stopped their afternoon tasks to watch and learn. No money needed to be exchanged since the NGO covered the costs of composing the songs and performing them in the city.
Similar to other events that take place in urban areas, the music of the ngoma troupe was both a form of entertainment and commerce. The music inspired people to gather because it was aesthetically pleasing and rhythmically interesting. The performers sang about issues that resonated with the audience, and listeners talked frequently during the event about the lyrics and their meaning. The music was also part of a business transaction. The musicians would not have composed the songs and played them around the city without being paid for their work. There needed to be financial incentive, a trade of money and creativity, in order for the event to take place.
Social science scholarship on music often analyzes songs as works of art that provide insight into people s daily lives. Songs are treated as texts, categorized into genres, and defined according to their most salient characteristics. These studies are vitally important to comprehending the arts as forms of expression that are unique to humanity. Of equal importance is analyzing music that exists in an economy of exchange and value. In societies driven by market economies, art forms become consumer goods that move through social networks of exchange and trade. There are so many ways to earn a living from music, whether in live performances, sound recordings, song compositions, or textual writing that it is difficult not to recognize the economic value placed on music in contemporary societies.
In this ethnography, I examine popular music in Dar es Salaam through analyzing music as both a cultural and economic resource. The focus is on presenting music as a work that people create, enjoy, and celebrate, and as a commodity that moves through an economy geared toward profiting from its social importance. The term work conveys the notion that there is something unique and irreplaceable being produced by artists, while commodity emphasizes the social life of music as a resource of economic potential (Lefebvre 1991: 70). Where one idea celebrates creativity in cultural forms of expression, the other provides a means to analyze music as distinct from mere products, goods, and artifacts (Appadurai 1986: 6). Combined, the notions of work and commodity provide a means to discuss the potential of music as a resource of human creativity and financial gain.
In analyzing music as both a work and commodity, I argue that one can attain a stronger sense of the contemporary place of music in urban African societies. The different ways that people relate to music provides a means for deciphering their interactions and relationships with cultural forms (Ginsburg 1997). Musicians rearrange notes, chords, harmonies, textures, and words to arrive at new and potentially influential material. As the music flows from artists to audience, it impacts people s worldviews and relations to each other. It influences emotions and allows people to escape into a world of meaning conveyed through lyrics and sounds. Moving from its source, people find ways to make music profitable. Profit, in this case, does not always mean monetary gains. It can also refer to improving status, social mobility, and power within different communities. This study is a means to conduct research, as Ongala states in the epigraph above, into the essence of things that are associated with living with and through music.
My focus on music as both a work and a commodity is meant to draw attention to broader shifts taki