A glass of Tequila for Zuchu as Bongo Flava surfs with Latinos

DAR ES SALAAM: TANZANIA’S Bongo Flava heroine, Zuchu continues to surf on both the Indian and Atlantic oceans at a professional ease with her recent hit, Lollipop, telling it all. Lollipop, which Zuchu duetted with Nigerian songbird, Yemi Alade, may sound familiar to an ordinary African due to its resemblance with common Bantu speaking tribes, but to Latin Americans, as they claim, it brings Tijuana, Barankwilla, Huapango, Habanero or Merengue very close to East and Central African nations.

“J vous aime trop mes chéries, et surtout bravo (I love you dears, kudos),” commented viewer signed as kingkitoko6538 Nigerian viewer Abidemi Odubanjo, said:” “Love from Nigeria,” “I am Nigerian I don’t know much about Tanzania music but this particular music I love it been to be honest the beat was just killing, I been searching this song, I heard it in the club I don’t really know the singer, I just have to type the song here I am; thanks, Bro, for this song…. My love to all African my folks.

Though there is an influence of Jamaican Dancehall Raga in Lollipop, the influence of Merengue, Mexican Huapango and Afro Cuban’s Son Montuno remains a dominant feature. Almost similar to Lollipop, Navy Kenzo’s Kamatia Chini, seems to lean on Jamaican Dancehall Raga, but to the Latin Americans, it is convincingly a mixture of Mexican Huapango and Merengue genres.

It is still baffling how these dance styles of Latin America could get a close link with rural and urban centres instead of Brazil, the country that received the majority of Africans from East and Central African countries. Four the Latinos, as they claim, It’s the Mexican connection that speaks louder than the rest of Latino world today and they have reasons to claim that link.

A few years ago, Jeje by Diamond Platinumz played a big role in bringing East African music to the Latino nations. Diamond Platinumz’s 2020 release, Jeje was a street rocker in various areas of Mexico and the whole Latino World.

Jeje sparked reaction not only in Mexico but also in Western part of Nigeria where Yoruba claim to see themselves in the way Jeje was performed. Most of the Latinos who adore it, claim to see their folk music and they relate it to Mexican Huapango and Merengue for Colombian viewers.

Without any close contact with the Bantu-speaking East and Central African region, Mexicans, Colombians and Venezuelans, have been keen followers of the music genres of the region for over five decades, as depicted through their views in various music outlets, most notably YouTube.

The Latinos who seemed to adore Jeje, labelled it mystical from the way the lady dancer flavoured it, but best analytical views were penned by Yoruba-speaking Nigerians.

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“Jeje in Yoruba- it means gently. Fantastic song. I can hear Igbo and Yoruba. The legend is multilingual, commented a fan named Genuine diasporan. “I love how Diamond is having that Nigerian vibe and eve saying JEJE which means EASY in yoruba language in Nigeria. Oh, Nakupenda diamond. I miss Der es salaam,” commented Helen Mesole.

“I always love this mix of afrobeat with sax is insane, very good song, greetings from Latin America,” echoed Gilberto Valenzuela, “A huge greeting from Mexico,” said Moyitojazz. “What a beautiful ladyyyyy!!!!! Love this music, saludos desde Medellín Colombia,” Milocpe noted.

As opposed to various researchers that claim African music has a huge influence in music genres played in various countries of Latin America, the Latinos believe the African pop music has borrowed heavily from Mexican Huapango and Colombian Merengue. It didn’t start with Diamond’s Jeje as before him East African classic hits like like Sina Makosa, Nimaru, Amigo or Afro by Less Wanyika and many Congolese hits produced under Veve label, all fell under Mexican Huapango lineage, according to the views in the Youtube channel.

Zahir Ally Zorro, composer, singer and guitarist who served Orchestra Kimulimuli and Sambuluma, seems to break the ice on the Mexican claims by labelling La Bamba, the world classic hit from Mexico, as a key player that might support the Latinos’ claims.

Zahir, who later played hotel music after ending his career in dance music, said after his performance at Whitesands Hotel in Dar es Salaam in 2001 that La Bamba has played a chief role in creating the music that rocked the East and Central African music scene in the early 1970s and that music was up-tempo since it shrugged off the key elements of Cuban and American Jazz music.

“In most big hotels, La Bamba has been a key repertoire and it has been in high demand,” he told the writer at Whitesands Hotel beach in 2001.

As a musician with a vast experience in playing rumba music (known as dance music in Tanzania), Zorro noted guitar improvisation (Seben or 7th chord) after the end vocal part is the best offer from La Bamba and that influence has remained in dance music played by Congolese, Tanzanians and Kenyan musicians today.

In what seems to support Zahir Ally views, the Latinos most notably Mexicans and Colombians even labelled Masumu, the Orchestra Kiam’s smash hit released in the mid-1970s as an influence from Tijuana, Mexico.

“Huge Mexico, Tijuana influence in Africa,” commented a Youtube viewer, Andrew Fletcher. A thorough probe of the main feature of La Bamba came out with intriguing findings that it was Carlos Santana’s version that had an everlasting influence on East Africans and Congolese musicians.

Though Ritch Valens’ version recorded in 1959 helped to put La Bamba on the global music arena, the version of La Bamba, Zahir Ally played and previously influenced countless soukous-styled bands, was played to perfection by Mexican Los Lobos.

But East African and Congolese musicians hardly accepted that and instead they named Carlos Santana as the player whose version of La Bamba steered the formation of sebene-flavoured music genres from Soukous to all genres of East African music.

What is said today and worth considering is that the biggest African influence in Mexican culture is found through music, “from Veracruz’s son Jarocho style of which La Bamba is the most famous example. Afro Latino researchers note the use of the typically Afro-Mexican musical instruments marimba and guijad justifies this connection.

Carlos Santana is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, pioneering a fusion of rock and Latin jazz. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine listed him at No. 20 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists.

He has won 10 Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards and was inducted along with his namesake band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro in Jalisco and moved from Autlán to Tijuana, the area whose folk music, as many Mexicans claim, has been heavily borrowed by African musicians.

Soon after he began playing guitar, he joined local bands along the “Tijuana Strip”, where he was able to begin developing his own sound. Santana’s most enduring and wellknown hits are “Oye Como Va” and “Black Magic Woman. There is ample evidence of African influence on folk music in Mexico, especially in the densely black-populated areas of Guerrero and Oaxaca in the Costa Chica region.

Instruments such as the marimba (finger piano) and tambor de fricción (friction drum) specifically point toward African influence in the folk music of Mexican Costa Chica. These enslaved Africans were taken from the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Angola, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, among others.