The Kwaya are a Bantu ethnolinguistic group based in the Mara Region of northern Tanzania, on the southeastern shore of Lake Victoria. In 1987 the Kwaya population was estimated to number 102,000. [1]
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. According to 2022 national census, Tanzania has a population of nearly 62 million, making it the fifth largest in Africa.
Zanzibar is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 25–50 km (16–31 mi) off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands and two large ones: Unguja and Pemba Island. The capital is Zanzibar City, located on the island of Unguja. Its historic centre, Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.
As it is in other countries, the music in Tanzania is constantly undergoing changes, and varies by location, people, settings and occasion. The five music genres in Tanzania, as defined by BASATA are, ngoma, dansi, kwaya, and taarab, with bongo flava being added in 2001. Singeli has since the mid-2000ss been an unofficial music of uswahilini, unplanned communities in Dar es Salaam, and is the newest mainstream genre since 2020.
Tanzanian Hip-hop, which is sometimes called Bongo Flava by many outside of Tanzania's hip hop community, encompasses a large variety of different sounds, but it is particularly known for heavy synth riffs and an incorporation of Tanzanian pop. There is some debate over whether Bongo Flava, which has emerged as a defined pop movement, can really still be qualified under the overarching term "hip hop" and not a movement unto itself, when it is beginning to develop a distinctive sound that differs from hardcore rap or, for example, the Maasai Hip hop of X Plastaz, who use the tradition of the Maasai tribe as the focal point for their sound and style. Tanzanian hip hop influenced the sound of the Bongo Flava genre. While Tanzanian hip hop retains many of the elements found in hip hop globally in terms of sound and lyricism, Bongo flava, derived from the Swahili word "ubongo", incorporates hip hop, Indian filmi, taraab, muzik wa dansi, and dancehall beats. It all began in the 1980s when Tanzanian teenagers were really interested in the American hip hop scene. At first, they took American beats and rapped to them. As the youth rapped, the hip hop in Tanzania began to develop into a mix of traditional and localized hip hop scene. As a result, it began a wave of interest from other people in Eastern Africa.
Mara Region is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The region covers an area of 21,760 km2 (8,400 sq mi). The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of El Salvador. The neighboring regions are Mwanza Region and Simiyu Region, Arusha Region, and Kagera Region. The Mara Region borders Kenya .The regional capital is the municipality of Musoma. Mara Region is known for being the home of Serengeti National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and also the birth place of Tanzania's founding father Julius Nyerere. Under British colonial occupation, the Mara Region was a district called the Lake Province, which became the Lake Region after independence in 1961.
Musoma is a city in the east shore of lake Victoria of Tanzania. It is the capital of Mara Region, one of the administrative Regions of Tanzania. It also serves as the administrative centre of Musoma Rural District and Musoma Urban District.
Following Tanganyika's independence (1961) and unification with Zanzibar (1964), leading to the formation of the state of Tanzania, President Julius Nyerere emphasised a need to construct a national identity for the citizens of the new country. To achieve this, Nyerere provided what has been regarded by some commentators as one of the most successful cases of ethnic repression and identity transformation in Africa.
Mwanza Region is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions The region covers a land area of 25,233 km2 (9,743 sq mi). The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of North Macedonia. Mwanza Region is bordered to the north through Lake Victoria by the Kagera Region and Mara Region, to the east by Simiyu Region, to the south by the Shinyanga Region and to the west by Geita Region. The regional capital is the city of Mwanza. According to the 2022 national census, the region had a population of 3,699,872 and national census of 2012 had 2,772,509. Mwanza Region is the second region with high population in Tanzania after Dar es Salaam Region
Imani Sanga is Professor of Music in the Department of Creative Arts, formerly called Department of Fine and Performing Arts, in the College of Humanities at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He teaches courses in Ethnomusicology, Philosophy of Music, Composition and Choral Music. And he conducts the university choir.
Jara, also known as Jera, is a Nigerian language reported to be spoken by 46,000 people in 2000. It is spoken in Borno and Gombe States, in the Biu, Kwaya-Kusar, Akko, and Yamaltu-Deba LGAs. It is an Afro-Asiatic language, in the Biu–Mandara branch of Chadic family. Use of Jara is declining; it is being displaced by Fulfulde and Hausa.
Jeff Todd Titon is a professor emeritus of music at Brown University. He holds the B.A. (1965) from Amherst College; and the M.A. and the Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He taught American literature, folklore and ethnomusicology in the departments of English and Music at Tufts University (1971-1986), where he co-founded the American Studies program and also the M.A. program in Ethnomusicology. He taught at Brown University (1986-2013) where he was director of the Ph.D. program in Ethnomusicology. He held visiting professorships at Amherst College, Carleton College, Berea College, East Tennessee State University, and Indiana University's Folklore Institute. His published books include Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis, Powerhouse for God: Speech, Chant and Song in an Appalachian Baptist Church, and Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays. He is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology and general editor of Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's Peoples. He was editor of Ethnomusicology, the journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology, from 1990-1995. In 1998 he was elected a Fellow of the American Folklore Society, and in 2020 he received their Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award. In 2015 his field recordings were chosen for preservation in the National Recording Registry, Library of Congress. Titon is known for developing collaborative ethnographic research based on reciprocity and friendship, for helping to establish an applied ethnomusicology based in social responsibility, for proposing that music cultures can be understood as ecosystems, for introducing the concepts of musical and cultural sustainability, and for his appeal for a sound commons for all living creatures and his current ecomusicological project of a sound ecology. His definition of ethnomusicology as "the study of people making music"—making the sounds they call music, and making music as a cultural domain—is widely accepted within the field.
Kwaya Kusar is a Local Government Area of Borno State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Kwaya Kusar.
Shani is a Local Government Area of Borno State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Shani.
Kwaya, Niger is a village and rural commune in the Magaria Department of the Zinder Region of Niger.
Yaouri is a village and rural commune in Matameye Department in Niger.
The Biu Emirate is a traditional state based in Biu in Borno State, Nigeria. Prior to 1920 it was referred to as the Biu Kingdom.
Jita is a Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken on the southeastern shore of Lake Victoria/Nyanza and on the island of Ukerewe.
Kara, or Regi, is a Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken off Ukerewe Island in Lake Victoria. Jita–Kara–Kwaya are close to being dialects.
Hõne is a Jukunoid language spoken in Gombe State and Taraba State, Nigeria. Speakers of the two dialects, Pindiga and Gwana, can only understand each other with difficulty. It belongs to the Jukun Wapan (Kororofa) language cluster.
Ngoma(also ng'oma or ing'oma) is a Bantu term with many connotations that encompasses music, dance, and instruments. In Tanzania ngoma also refers to events, both significant life-changing events such as the first menstruation or the birth or passing of a loved one, as well as momentary events such as celebrations, rituals, or competitions. Ngoma was the primary form of culture throughout the Great Lakes and Southern Africa. Today it is most notable in Tanzania, where it is deemed an official music genre by the National Arts Council (BASATA - Baraza la Sanaa la Taifa). In Tanzania, it is experienced throughout the country and performed, taught, and studied in many schools and universities. The most notable school for ngoma is the Bagamoyo Arts and Cultural Institute, which produces the most prominent chairmen (directors/conductors) and dancers.