Tanzania’s music memory is fading, John Kitime is racing the clock alone!

DAR ES SALAAM: VETERAN musician John Francis Kitime, known as JFK, has spent years rescuing Tanzania’s music history from the dustbin. His exhibition at Alliance Française in Dar es Salaam shows what one man can do and asks why he has been left to do it alone.

When John Francis Kitime invited me to the opening of his music heritage exhibition at Alliance Française, I packed my camera and expected a pleasant evening.

I thought there would be old friends, a few familiar tunes and the usual grumbling about how music was better before computers started doing half the work.

I got the old friends. I also came home with something heavier on my mind.

I walked through La Galerie, studied the photographs, and listened to Kitime explain them. By the end, I had reached a conclusion I still cannot shake: this man is a national hero.

He is doing work that belongs to the nation, with his own hands and from his own pocket. The government must honour him, and more urgently, it must help him, before time decides for us.

La Galerie is on Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road, behind Las Vegas Casino. Use the casino’s gate, since they share a parking lot, but come for the music, not the slot machines.

Inside are photographs of musicians whose names once filled dance halls, alongside vintage vinyl recordings, documents and old audio equipment. Some have died. Others live on only in the memories of fans who are getting on in years themselves.

Kitime remembers them, and he has kept the proof. For years he has gathered photographs, recordings, letters and artefacts, mostly without the money or technical backing that serious archiving needs.

The irony is plain. Tanzania’s musicians played at independence celebrations, political rallies, weddings and countless Saturday nights. Their songs helped shape who we are. Yet the job of keeping their story has landed on one musician with a private collection.

Surely, we can do better. What struck me most was how Kitime ties music to the story of Dar es Salaam itself. His guided tour began in the colonial period and showed how entertainment venues, recording facilities and broadcasting grew up together. Some pictures show a city today’s residents would barely recognise.

Today a youngster can record a whole song on a laptop, fix the vocals, tidy up the instruments and post it online before lunch.

Back then the band stood together and had to get it right. If the trumpeter fluffed his line, no button could save him. You simply played again.

The exhibition also covers venues such as Arnatouglou and Dar es Salaam Legion halls, which helped shape the city’s social life.

It includes old correspondence about recording opportunities in Mombasa, which shows how East African music moved around long before anybody had heard of streaming.

These documents are history, and they tell us how musicians worked, how the recording business ran and how audiences found their music. If nobody preserves them, the details turn into rumour and then vanish.

Tanzania’s music story is a rich one, with its share of drama.

Think of Cuban Marimba, Morogoro Jazz, NUTA Jazz, Tabora Jazz, Butiama Jazz, Jamhuri Jazz, Automic Jazz, Mara Jazz, Western Jazz, DDC Mlimani Park Orchestra, Orchestra Maquis Original and many more.

And behind every famous recording were people who rehearsed, travelled, quarrelled and sometimes went home with far less money than their fame suggested.

Who is writing their stories down? Who is keeping the original photographs? Who remembers the sidemen who played beside the stars but never became household names?

This is where Kitime is hard to replace.

He knows the music from the inside. He understands instruments, arrangements, bands and recording practice, and he knew many of the personalities.

A photograph without a caption is just a picture. Add the correct names, the date, the place and the background, and it becomes a record.

Once the person who can supply those details is gone, the information is very hard to recover. Dear government, this is your business.

Now for the less entertaining part of my Sunday reflections. Bear with me.

We have a ministry responsible for culture. We have universities, museums, the national archives and public agencies with real expertise.

Telecom companies, banks and broadcasters already sponsor concerts and shows with enthusiasm. Together, they surely have the goodwill needed to safeguard the music that has entertained this country for generations.

The ministry should lead by sitting down with Kitime to agree on a practical partnership. Nobody should take over his collection or bury it in bureaucracy. His ownership should be protected and his work respected.

What he needs is equipment to digitise analogue recordings, scanners for old photographs, secure digital storage, conservation materials and trained archivists, plus funds to record oral histories with surviving musicians, producers, broadcasters, promoters and technicians.

Picture a Tanzania Music Heritage Digital Archive open to students, researchers, journalists and the public.

You could search for a musician, listen to authorised recordings, browse photographs and read the stories behind famous songs, with copyright and ownership respected, of course.

The technology exists, and the skills can be built. What we lack is the will.

We Tanzanians have a peculiar gift for praising people once they are gone. We give fine speeches, call them legends and pioneers, and promise never to forget.

Then the mourners go home, the tapes keep gathering dust, and the photographs keep fading.

Let us not wait for a memorial service to discover what Kitime has done for this country. He has earned national recognition today, and a national honour would be fitting.

A medal with no resources behind it would change very little, though.

He needs help now, while he can still name the faces in his photographs, explain each recording and pass on what he knows to younger researchers.

A national programme could bring Kitime together with other private collectors, the National Museum, archivists, universities and the broadcasting industry.

Along the way, young people could train in archival photography, audio restoration and digital documentation.

Saving yesterday’s music could produce tomorrow’s cultural professionals and a few future DJs with manners.

Alliance Française and the exhibition team deserve thanks, as do the supporters of French and African cultural cooperation who brought the show to the public.

Still, why should such an important part of our heritage depend on one man’s determination and the occasional foreign partner? Preserving Tanzania’s musical memory is a Tanzanian responsibility.

It belongs in our classrooms, museums, libraries and documentaries, and it needs a permanent home.

Go and see it: The exhibition runs at La Galerie, Alliance Française, Dar es Salaam, until 4 December 2026.

I urge musicians, fans, journalists, historians and students to go. Above all, I urge those who control public and corporate budgets to go.

Bring the children. Let them see how music was made before smartphones and AI, and meet the musicians who will never trend but built the industry today’s stars enjoy.

Most of all, listen to Kitime while he still has the energy to tell the stories.

ALSO READ: When Tanzanian music played on, but money wandered off

I left La Galerie with fresh respect for JFK and with a sense of urgency.

Cultural preservation cannot remain a hobby for a few passionate individuals. So here is my appeal to those in authority: visit the exhibition, then sit down with John Kitime and agree on real, lasting support.

Congratulating him is easy. What counts is helping him.

One day JFK will no longer be able to carry this load by himself. When that day comes, Tanzania should inherit a properly kept archive rather than a pile of unanswered questions.

That, dear readers, is a tune I hope somebody in authority is listening to.

Happy Sunday!