Guitar solo reign not gone forever, Bongo Flava tells it al

DAR ES SALAAM: IT was in early 1980s when Freddie Ndala Kasheba rose from obscurity to command the Tanzanian music scene with his scary 12-stringed guitar and to some extent it brought shiver to his adversaries.

Guided by its shimmering” tone, the 12-stringed guitar which Kasheba himself nicknamed Kombora la Nyuzi dazeni (dozen stringed bomb), was a big threat to then established guitarists, including Maquz du Zaire master guitarist, Nguza Viking Mbangu, who was his arch-rival.

Juwata Jazz (Msondo) reacted fast against the threat imposed by Kasheba’s 12-stringed terror whose eponymous hit Vituko vya Ashura dominated radio airplay in the early 1980s. Said Mabela of Juwata (Msondo Ngoma today) was handed the 12- stringed guitar whose hit song included Jeffa.

“There is no technical advantage in the 12-stringed guitar, it is as normal as the 6-strnged one,” Mabela explained it to the 3 Radio Tanzania presenter upon recording Jeffa at its studios.

He said a 12-string guitar is a musical instrument with six pairs of strings, but it produces a richer, louder and more resonant chime-like sound than a standard 6-string guitar.

“It uses the same tuning and playing techniques as a standard guitar but requires more tension and offers a fuller, “shimmering” tone perfect for folk music,” he said.

During the reign of guitar-governed music, guitarists were3 highly adored by music fans because they commanded the dancing. Big names like Dr Nico, Franco Luambo Makiadi, Mbaraka Mwinshehe, Shem Karenga were great solosits besides doing vocals.

It is only the past that hailed the guitar solo, which even today, when Tanzanians cherish keyboard-governed Bongo Flava, remains the most indestructibly great art forms in all of modern music.

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of a glorious six-string explosion a long, twisted, never-ending saga that stretches from Tanzania’s golden hits such as Sina Makosa by Les Wanyika, Rangi ya Chungwa by Nyanyembe Jazz, Dada Remmy by Tabora Jazz or Georgina by Safari Trippers.

Les Wanyika’s Sina Makosa is the late Seventies classic sound silky smooth, but its snapping, Professor Omar Shaaban’s melodic guitar solo illuminates the tensions in its lyrics. Guitar solos are no longer cherished in today’s Bongo Flava era to the extent guitarists have completely faded from the limelight. It is not only in Tanzania, the whole globe has neglected the sixstringed instrument.

Modern music has shifted away from prominent guitar solos due to a combination of changing popular tastes, the rise of digital production and the need for efficiency in streaming-age songwriting. While the guitar remains popular, its role has evolved from a focal point of virtuosity to a textural element. It’s sad that guitar solos are no longer as central to modern music due to technological advancement.

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Modern popular music, influenced by streaming and platforms like TikTok, requires high engagement within the first 30 seconds. Many modern songs, particularly in pop and country, now use the 2-minute mark for a new lyrical bridge or a drop in energy, rather than an instrumental solo.

The Rise of Electronic and Digital make it often cheaper and faster to produce tracks using software and MIDI than to hire a studio musician for a specialized solo. Modern music often favours electronic textures, hip-hop beats and heavily produced vocal hooks over raw rock instrumentation.

The extensive “shredding” of the 80s and early 90s caused a backlash, where many deemed long guitar solos as unnecessary self-indulgence rather than a contribution to the song’s emotion.

For younger listeners, guitar solos can be associated with older generations, making them feel outdated or “uncool”. The rise of social media and home recording encourages technical perfection through editing, which can feel less “raw” or authentic compared to live, improvised solos of the past.

Because so many incredible solos were produced in the 70s-90s, it has become harder for new players to create something that feels entirely unique, leading to a perception that “everyone sounds the same”.

However, the guitar solo is not dead; it has simply moved away from mainstream pop into other genres.

Many modern artists still use guitar solos, often focusing on emotion and melodic phrasing over pure technical speed. Guitar sound is back in East Africa and all major figures of the new generation seem to have embraced it. Rayvanny’s recently released ’My Babe’ contains the Carlos Santanalike bluesy guitar and it seems to fit in Rayvanny’s ballad.

Coming Also with unmistakable Dancehall Rhythm is Utanipenda by Darassa featuring Rich Mavoko. Kolo by Nadia Mukami Ft Otile Brown also brought on stage a beautiful sound of classic guitar, but the guitar sound seems to miss some elements of Western Kenya’s hard grinding Benga guitar.

A dancehall tinge also brightly coloured the rhythm of Kata by Ommy Dimpoz featuring Nandy. To dance and band music, Ali Kiba is adored as a complete musician and an actor of music and that made him the earliest Bongo Flava artiste to wear a full musician cap and that came in 2004 after releasing Mwana.

Ali Kiba whose hits are widely played by dance music bands operating in bars and hotels all over East Africa, is labelled a complete musician since most of his works retain rhumba subtlety and guitar accompaniment that cherishes guitar improvisation (sebene or seventh) at the end .

His biggest ally towards that fame is Patient Losso, whose Fender guitar solos brightly coloured Ali Kiba’s major hits from Dushelele to Chekecha Cheketua and Mwana and the guitar sebenes are the longest like that of rumba oldies. The guitar played a significant role in shaping contemporary African music in the 20th century. Musicians met these challenges, redefining their identity and creating a synthesis of older genres and new ideas. “Mwana” is Alikiba’s most anticipated music video to date.

‘Mwana’ is Alikiba’s 1st official release through his worldwide partnership with his record label and management company ROCKSTAR4000 and Rockstar Publishing. The Music Video ‘Mwana’ is the first single from Alikiba’s 3rd Album, released after a 3-year hiatus from the music scene.

Alikiba describes this album as his “most personal and mature project that pushed his versatile talent and creativity to inner depths.” Guitar loops have become the foundation of new releases from established Bongo Flava stars like Rayvanny, Harmonize and Aslay.

None of the recently re-introduced guitar sounds in smash hits of the new generation artistes that responds to what the global music analysts labeled East African guitar style. East African guitar sound has never discussed in East Africa despite being mentioned several times.

It all started in 1987 in South African when American Paul Simon performed his Graceland project in a concert that featured top musicians from South Africa, US and Cameroun. Ray Phiri, the South African with Malawian parentage, received a huge acclaim as a guitarist who brightly coloured the show with East African guitar style.

Born in 1947 in Mbombela, Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga), Ray Phiri was part of the eight month-long Graceland Tour, a global trek headed by American singer Paul Simon. The aim of the tour was to mobilise states in support of the struggle for liberation, for better living standards in oppressed African states and the promotion of crosscultural dialogue.

Phiri later earned a Grammy Award for his participation on the tour. He was praised to have introduced the East African guitar style following his Malawian parentage. His guitar style that music analysis wrongly put it as East African guitar, helped the South Africans to make names for themselves abroad.

But his reputation as an innovator of East African guitar style was corrected a few months later by Lokassa & Soukous Stars upon releasing Nairobi and Lagos Night.

A music fan in Kenya, Masika Simiyu called the hit album a fusion of West Africa style and Congolese style and a mix of Congolese and East Africa styles, respectively. ‘Roza’ and ‘Vigelegele’ both recorded by Western Jazz band and the 1973-composition, Dada Asha by Tabora precisely revealed to the world what the east African Swahili guitar is.

The big players of East African guitar in the songs were Wema Ramadhani and Shamba Ramadhani for Western Jazz while Shem Kalenga(lead) and Kassim Kaluona(rhythm) for Tabora. The biggest producers in the genre largely abandoned guitar as the keyboard sound looked to suit the genre’s fans. But in the second half of the 2000s, that guitar sound became less fashionable. Soul samples were no longer an essential part of hip-hop’s mainstream.

And advances in production programmes and auto-tune meant that most of pop music moved away from a live-instrument foundation. Their success stemmed from the wall-buckling power of their programmed drums and bass lines. Guitars seemed flimsy in comparison.

Though the resurgence of prominent guitar parts in Bongo Flava seems surprising at first, it makes sense when you consider that many young artists are already strongly melody-focused.