Mabaga, Nature still nurture hard-beaten Bongo Flava

DAR ES SALAAM: MABAGA Fresh’s melancholic hit “Bado Tunataabika” is among the golden oldies at Bongo Flava@30 in Mbeya where it hits its fifth round on November 7th, 2026.

“Bado Tunataabika (We are still suffering) as the late 1990s Bongo Flava hit, will evoke the memory of Bongo Flava infancy, true life and lifestyle of Bongo Flava artists three decades ago.

Other group’s popular Songs are “Mtulize” (featuring Juma Nature and “Hatujakata Tamaa” (also featuring Juma Nature) Mabaga Fresh will be on stage together with other Bongo Flava legends, most notably; Mr Blue, Afande Sele, Kalapina, Juma Nature, Gangwe Mob, Mabaga Fresh and MB Doggy The list of legends also includes Jafarai, Domokaya, Mchizi Mox, Mapacha, Manzese Crew, Tundaman, Chidi Benz, Mwasiti, Keisha, Hussein Machozi, Hama Q, Daz Baba, Ferouz, Kassim Mganga, King Crazy GK There won’t be hits of joy and modern-life conquest in this tour, similarly to other four rounds staged in Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Mwanza and Zanzibar.

You won’t see Marioo singing or performing his 2025 release, “Tete” or Diamond Platnumz singing “Katam”.

You won’t see Mbosso perfoming “Pawa” either, even Diamond with countless mega hits won’t be on stage in Mbeya as he and artists of his calibre are contemporary stars of the present era. It’s a stage solely for Bongo Flava legends, who sadly missed a train carrying music fortunes.

It is not an event for artists with a huge global audience who earn in terms of dollars like Diamond Platnumz who reportedly raked in over 48m US dollars.

In short, “Tete”, “Pawa”, and other voluminous hits penned by Bongo Flava mega stars; Diamond Platnumz, Harmonize, Zuchu, Jux, Nandy or Ray Vanny gained global fan base and audience while the artistry during Mabaga Fresh or Juma Nature era failed t make a crossover appeal beyond Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

The Bongo Flava legends heading for Bongo Flava@30 in Mbeya are victims of a technological gap that saw them missing major music platforms like Youtube and Tiktok.

Huge fanbase, subscription and branding have handsomely rewarded the present era Bongo Flava stars. YouTube, one of the major music platforms, has been very beneficial to the musicians with a huge fanbase.

The platform pays for music through YouTube streaming app and YouTube video tracking system as it functions as both an on-demand audio platform and a video platform.

As Youtube details, when one distributes his songs through a digital distributor (like CD Baby, DistroKid, or TuneCore), it automatically creates Art Tracks, static videos showing his album artwork while his track plays.

Musician or author earns money here in two ways; one through Premium Subscribers According to 2026 data published by Dynamoi, the median payout for paid-tier streams sits at roughly 6.85 US dollars per 1,000 plays (0.0068 US dollars per stream).

If a user without a subscription plays a song, the payout is lower and is funded strictly by the advertisements served before or during the audio track. YouTube uses an automated audio fingerprinting database called Content ID.

When your distributor uploads your music to this database, YouTube scans every video uploaded to the site by other creators.

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If a travel vlogger, gamer, or makeup reviewer uses your song in the background of their video, Content ID catches it. Instead of muting or taking down the video, you can choose to monetise it.

YouTube will place ads on their video and route the advertising revenue directly to you. On average, artists earn around 0.00087 US dollar per view when their music is claimed inside user-generated videos.

If you upload official music videos or lyric videos to your own personal channel, you can earn standard ad revenue.

To do this, you must apply and be accepted into the YouTube Partner Programme (YPP). The primary thresholds for a fully monetized channel include: 1,000 subscribers or 4,000 valid public watch hours over the past 12 months.

Once accepted, you receive a 55 percent share of the revenue generated by the ads running on your videos. Every song has two copyrights: The Master (the audio recording) and the Composition (the lyrics and melody).