[image courtesy of Bongo Celebrity]
Am still trying to play catch up in representing my Tanzania brothers on GetMziki, the truth is that I stopped growing with the Tanzanian producers since 2006. My personal opinion is that Tanzanian Bongo Flava changed dramatically from that moment onwards. The classic Bongo (Zouk) style songs will still rise up above everything else, so you will always dance to the likes of 2Berry, Ali Kiba and other like singers. But I haven’t been moved by any hiphop track coming from Tanzania for a long time now.
My favorite Producers still remain P-Funk Majani (a good friend) and Masta Jay… but to date I haven’t heard anything that has made me fall off the chair. That said, while I was in Tanzania working with U&I Entertainment – some cat called Complex worked at one of our studios. This dude was humble as hell, and although I didn’t really interact much with him, he left a lasting impression regardless. Complex passed away in 2005 from a car accident – it was a devastating time for many of us and the industry at large. I promised to commemorate his departure one day and I think this is probably the best way – by highlighting some of his work that never really got out there.
I’ve shared two tracks the first called Nyamaza (produced by Complex) which was performed by a group they were putting together called B-Town, and the second called Taifa la Bongo by the same group (features people like Noorah, Dataz and some other cats I cant remember – although I know there was a french or dutch guy who spoke swahili) (seven weka sawa hapa kwasabu nimesha sahau!!!)
listen to the Nyamaza track here:
[audio:http://getmziki.com/music/Nyamaza-B-Town.mp3]download the track here:
listen to Taifa La Bongo here:
[audio:http://getmziki.com/music/BTown-TaifaLaBongo.mp3]download the track here:
