After greeting a few people I knew—as I said, half of Dar es Salaam moved to Stone Town for the weekend—I dove right into the crowd.
A Swahili music (music that developed along the Swahili Coast merging African, Arabic, and Indian influences) performance was in progress.
On stage, a mystical looking woman with white facial painting played a lute while her beautiful, graceful backup singers sat on the floor in a line swaying back and forth.
It sounded to me like they were singing in Swahili but my ear couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.
I could have sworn they were Zanzibari.
Consulting my program, I realized I had walked in on a performance by Nawal & les Femmes de la Lune, from Comoros, an island-nation not far from Zanzibar.
I was amazed at how much they sounded like Zanzibari taarab (the most popular style of Swahili music) singers!
In the excitement of getting to Sauti za Busara, I had completely forgotten to eat.
My body let me know it was time to grab a bite.
Although, I would normally have crossed the street and bought some delicious Zanzibari street food from Forodhani Gardens, across the Old Fort, I didn’t want to deal with the crowd of people at the Fort’s entrance.
Since there were similar food vendors right there at the venue, I thought I’d give that a try.
They served the same delicious fare I would normally expect, but the prices were quite a bit higher.
I settled on some seafood and headed back to the Fort’s courtyard just in time to catch part of Guinean N’Faly Kouyaté’s performance.
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Nicknamed the Jimi Hendrix of the kora for his dexterity on it, N’Faly Kouyaté played haunting tunes and got the whole crowd at Sauti za Busara to sing along with him…in French.
Next up was Nathalie Natiembe, from Réunion Island, with rock-sounding music.
Although people I talked to after the show said she was one of their favorite performers from the festival, her punk rock sound was not for me, especially after the rich distinctly-African sounds I’d heard from the last two acts.
Her set passed quickly enough and it was back to more fascinating-for-me music.
The next performance was from a group that seemed like an eclectic mix even at first sight.
In the middle of the stage sat a man in traditional Luo attire, nyatiti in hand.
All but one of the band members around him (who played the African drums) were white Londoners.
The man and his band couldn’t have been more different from each other than night from day, and this continued to be true even as they played.
They played in different styles, they moved differently, and their vocals were representative of the different worlds they came from.
And yet, there was something groovy when the two came together.
I couldn’t stop bobbing my head or tapping my feet.
The group’s name? Owiny Sigoma Band.
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That’s something I’ve come to love about Sauti za Busara.
To see groups billed as coming from Kenya/U.K., e.g., the Owiny Sigoma Band; or Austria/Burkina Faso like the fast-paced energetic Burkina Electric; or from Senegal/Sweden like my favorite act from the festival, Sousou & Maher Cissoko, is the norm.
When I first noticed this in the program, I was upset.
Couldn’t the festival simply feature African music, unadorned and unadulterated? Did African musicians need to collaborate with European or American musicians to be palatable to festival goers?
After 3 days of such cross-culture collabos, I had to take back these sentiments. It was delightfully refreshing to see how musicians from starkly different cultures and musical heritages could collaborate to create entirely new sounds while respecting their various backgrounds and with no musical style dominating the other.
In fact, it is this cross-cultural aspect of Sauti za Busara that I am most looking forward to experiencing again the next time I attend.
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Whats Going on in Stone Town: Zanzibar Music Festival With Lots of Local Acts
The music at Sauti za Busara was far from all foreign.
There were local acts from Zanzibar playing various styles of Swahili music, such as the 56-year-old legendary taarab orchestra, Culture Musical Club, and the centenarian queen of taarab and unyago, the now-deceased Bi Kidude (Bi Kidude died two months after this performance).
There were also many performances from Tanzanian mainland performers, who although most used the Swahili language performed genres that would generally not fall under the umbrella of Swahili music.
These included the stellar Wakwetu Jazz Vibes, traditional musician Msafiri Zawose, and the erotic underground music and dance of Super Maya Baikoko.
By the third day of the 10th edition of Sauti za Busara, I was reveling in my 3-day immersion in not only Swahili music, as I’d expect from a music festival held in Zanzibar, but also in world music.
I began to wonder when my taste in music had become so myopic.
I made a pact with myself to expand my musical horizons and so far, so good.
Before getting to the festival, I was familiar with only four of the twenty-three artists or groups on the program.
At Sauti za Busara I was exposed to amazing musicians from across Africa and the world, that I can firmly say I would probably never have encountered elsewhere in life.
I feel so much richer for the experience.
Sauti za Busara takes place every February in Stone Town, Zanzibar. For more information, visit www.busaramusic.org.
Until the next time,
Biche
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Photo Credits: Sauti za Busara Crowd (Peter Stanley); Owiny Sigoma Band (Masoud Khamis)