Grateful dead is Tatunane as Mbosso era solves its 3/8 puzzle

DAR ES SALAAM: FLYING high in bright colours, Bongo Flava music continues to win the hearts of a global audience, buoyed by its sweet Swahili poetry, which often incorporates myriads of tribal dances.

Mbosso’s “Huyu Hapa” which fuses Swahili poetry and Kisonge dance from Tabora, Yamoto Band’s Segere-Lizombe fusion in hits like “Niseme” or “Nitakupwelepweta” or “Aiyola” by Harmonize, which dips into Zaramo’s Segere, are among the brightest hits that fit into the step and both local and foreign audiences widely adore the artists who performed them.

Today’s Bongo Flava megastars like Diamond Platnumz, Zuchu, Nandy or Mbosso even add taarab flavours in their hits to the satisfaction of the global, regional and domestic audiences.

The success of today’s artists calls for a review of Tatunane music, which did almost the same during the pre-Bongo Flava era, but they only managed to appeal to a global audience while getting zero acceptance at home. Though they have faded from the limelight today, they, however, deserve a status as the first Tanzanian band to win in the global music arena.

They should be honoured as the pillars of American-influenced music fusion that the present-day generation parades to captivate the entire globe.

Well-documented globally, Tatunane was the first Tanzanian band that fused American rock, funk and Tanzanian folk music. It was formed in the late 1980s by a group of former students and artists from the Bagamoyo College of Arts (TaSUBa) in Tanzania.

Abdalla Omar “Dulla” Mnanga, the lead singer and master percussionist and bassist, trained at the Bagamoyo College of Arts before joining the Juwata Jazz band, now Msondo Ngoma, where he specialised in rhythm guitar, sharing the instrument with Ahmed Omar and Mustafa Hamisi Pitchu.

The band also featured David Marama, who co-managed it. Mahdi Tumbo who played guitar for Safari Trippers alongside David Gordon Mussa, Charles Mhuto and Omari Naliene, who mastered a penny whistle and flute, was also among the band’s major attractions on stage as he played the instrument using nostrils not lips as many did.

Innovative bassist, Ted Mbarak and Seif Rengwe who manned a tenor saxophone and trumpet, completed the list of the band’s musicians. The band gained international acclaim in 1991 with their debut album AfroBrazz, winning Radio France’s prestigious Prix Découvertes (Grand Prix) award.

“The Découvertes award opened our way to the global stages, but to our amazement, the local audience didn’t adore our music which had huge fans globally,” noted Seif Rengwe after his band’s performance at Kunduchi Beach Hotel in the early 1990s.

The band ceased to exist by the mid-1990s largely due to the untimely death of penny whistler Omary Naliene, who was the band’s chief entertainer. Tatunane is almost forgotten as Tanzania’s new generation music, Bongo Flava, celebrates its 30th anniversary.

The generation gap seems the perfect answer to why Bongo Flava manages to stand an edge above Tatunane’s Bingo Fusion.

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“We play music that promotes the richness of Tanzania’s tribal dances; that’s why the world understands us better than our fellow Tanzanians,” noted horn player Seif Rengwe.

From what Tatunane fans claimed, the band’s music was for the global audience, but to their fellow Tanzanians it didn’t qualify as music, but a collection of developed traditional music and its associated dances.

Still, the Tanzanians, most of them still glued to the disco craze era of RnB variants, were not totally naïve of what Tatunane played, according to the band’s bassist Ted Mbarak.

“Tanzania understood the kind of music we played as they even the elements of TanzaniaAmerican fusion, but it didn’t suit the society that was still glued to rhumba idiom,” noted Mbarak after the Tatunane live concert in Temeke in 1991.

“I was most often thumping my bass guitar so that to some extent it annoyed them,” he recalls. “Punguza kibakubaku…,” yelled one of the fans and that made Mbarak realise that thumping means Kibakubaku in Kiswahili.

Globally, Tatunane is honoured for pioneering Tanzanian traditional fusion and traditional Afro-pop. The band was formed in 1987 and is celebrated for popular songs like “Dogoli,” “Furahia Ngoma” and “Msewe.”

Emerging as the house band at Dar es Salaam’s popular Sugar Ray’s nightspot, they gained widespread international acclaim for blending intricate Tanzanian polyrhythms with electric guitars, mandolins and traditional flutes.

Their most notable and heavily recorded tracks include “Dogoli”, a widely recognised, high-energy traditional-fusion track that ranks as one of their most listened-to compositions.

There was also “Furahia Ngoma”, translating to “Enjoy the Dance”; this song encapsulates the rhythmic essence of the band. With Seif Rengwe doing a commendable Zomari-like horn, “Msewe” infused with coastal rhythms, this track remains a quintessential example of their dynamic live performances.

There was also “Tanzania” as a patriotic and cultural homage showcasing the melodic vocal arrangements of the group. “Mangaka” was a track that deeply explores southern Tanzanian ethnic rhythms integrated with modern instrumentation.

Hits like “Juma Ndala” became popular for prominently highlighting guitar and percussion interplay between Mahdi Tumbo and Abdallah Omary Dulla. The next in their list was “Mdundiko”, which was based on the traditional celebration dance rhythms of the Zaramo people from Dar es Salaam and Pwani.

Much of this classic repertoire was featured on their groundbreaking 1991 debut album AfroBrazz, which made them the first Tanzanian band to win the prestigious Radio France International (RFI) Prix Découvertes.

Tatunane means three eight, and Dulla explained, it came after their lengthy research found the majority of Tanzania’s tribal music falls on a 3/8-time beat.

“We specifically adopted from Nyamwazi folk dances, most notably Hiari ya Moyo and Kisonge,” explained Dulla. Contrary to Bongo Flava, Tatunane were very open in infusing certain tribal elements in their music, while Bongo Flava just uses traditional elements to flavour or sweeten its music.

With its complex nature, Tatunane couldn’t convince a town youth to dance the Sangura dance from the Wapogoro tribe.

“When I play a pen whistle using my nostrils, audiences in the Netherlands, France or Germany get standing ovations, but not here in Dar es Salaam,” noted Omary Naliene.

For Tanzania, which promotes nationalism and discourages tribalism, Tatunane music was seen as promoting tribalism, Naliene commented after the band’s performance in Temeke.

As their innovation is now used by Bongo Flava to win both domestic and global audiences, Tatunane looks like the ‘Grateful Dead’.