Mohamed Issa Haji 'Matona (born 1969) is a Zanzibarian musician. He is a founder and the artistic director of Zanzibar's Dhow Countries Music Academy. [1]
Mohamed Issa Haji 'Matona (born 1969) is a Zanzibarian musician. He is a founder and the artistic director of Zanzibar's Dhow Countries Music Academy. [1]
Mohamed is the son of the renowned Tanzanian musician Issa Matona (a composer, singer, and violinist in the taarab genre). [2]
Issa Matona played in the orchestra JKT Taarab, based in Dar es Salaam. [3] Mohamed was born in Zanzibar and educated in mainland Tanzania. [4] As a child, Mohamed Issa Matona learned to play violin by watching his father, and percussion by playing on disused milk cans. In 1987, at the age of 18, he joined his father's band. He went on to play with Twinkling Stars (led by Mohammed Ilyas). In 1995, he started his own taarab band, G-Clef. [5] In 2001, in association with Joseph Castico, Zanzibar's one-time director of the ministry of Information, Culture and Sports, Mohamed founded the Dhow Countries Music Academy, [6] working initially as treasurer before becoming director. [4] In 2010 Mohamed took a diploma in music at the DCMA with a thesis on 'The Development of Taarab Music in Zanzibar'. [7]
This discography is incomplete.
Dar es Salaam is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of the Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over five million people, Dar es Salaam is the largest city in East Africa and the sixth-largest in Africa. Located on the Swahili coast, Dar es Salaam is an important economic center and one of the fastest-growing cities in the world.
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by 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 the 2022 national census, Tanzania has a population of nearly 62 million, making it the most populous country located entirely south of the equator.
Zanzibar is an insular semi-autonomous region 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 African 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-2000s been an unofficial music of uswahilini, unplanned communities in Dar es Salaam, and is the newest mainstream genre since 2020.
Taarab is a music genre popular in Tanzania and Kenya. It is influenced by the musical traditions of the African Great Lakes, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Taarab rose to prominence in 1928 with the advent of the genre's first star, Siti binti Saad.
Mohamed Gharib Bilal is a Tanzanian politician who was Chief Minister of Zanzibar from 1995 to 2000. He was Vice President of Tanzania from 2010 to 2015. He is a nuclear scientist by profession and also served as Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education from 1990 to 1995.
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.
Shaaban Robert Secondary School (SRSS) is a co-educational secondary school based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The school is named after the celebrated Tanzanian poet and author, Shaaban Bin Robert.
Indian Tanzanians constitute a significant minority within the demographic landscape of Tanzania, with a population exceeding 60,000 individuals of Indian descent residing in the country. Many among them are traders and entrepreneurs, and despite forming only 0.2% of the population, who of which came control over the majority of the economy. Indians also have a long history in Tanzania, starting with the arrival of Gujarati traders, and they gradually came to control the trade in Zanzibar. Several buildings from that period still stand in Stone Town, the primary trading center on the island.
Tanzania Music Awards are national music awards held annually in Tanzania. They are also known as the Kilimanjaro Music Awards or the Kili Music Awards after their sponsor. The awards were established in 1999 by the National Arts Council (BASATA) under the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Culture.
Hussein Ali Mwinyi is the 8th president of Zanzibar. The son of former Tanzanian president Ali Hasan Mwinyi, he is a member of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) political party.
Muhidin Issa Michuzi is a Tanzanian photojournalist and blogger.
Harald Lassen is a Norwegian jazz musician, composer, and band leader. He leads the band LASSEN, and has also been a member of Pixel, Mopti, No. 4, Dr. Kay And His Interstellar Tone Scientists, and DUPLEX. He gained attention at an early age by musicians such as bass player, Arild Andersen and drummer, Jon Christensen. He has collaborated with Bugge Wesseltoft, Morten Qvenild, Emilie Stoesen Christensen, Tord Gustavsen, Bram De Looze, Corrie Dick, Arthur Kay, Ellen Andrea Wang, Anja Lauvdal, Rob Waring, Mathias Eick, Ray Phiri, Mohamed Issa Matona, and LABtrio.
The Alliance for Change and Transparency, sometimes known as the ACT–Wazalendo, is the third-largest political party in Tanzania. It received its permanent registration in May 2014.
The Dhow Countries Music Academy (DCMA) is the first and only music school in Zanzibar, Tanzania, located in Vuga (Culture Music Club Building) in Stone Town. The academy promotes and preserves music heritage of the "Dhow Region" which include countries along the shores of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. Particular emphasis is being placed on teaching traditional music styles, such as Taarab, Kidumbaki or Ngoma.
Sofia Kawawa was the co-founders of the Tanzania Women's Union (UWT). She was a member of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) party and later Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM).
Haji Gora Haji was a Swahili-language poet, lyricist, and writer from the Zanzibar archipelago. He channeled his expansive knowledge of the culture and society of the Swahili coast, especially his homeland of Tumbatu, into his works. For his work inspired by the seascape of his home, he has been called "The Old Typhoon". He worked in a multitude of forms, from songs, stories, and epics to a full-length novel. His compositions and verse were frequently on Tanzanian radio.
Egypt–Tanzania relations are bilateral relations between Egypt and Tanzania. The two nations primarily maintain trade ties and established formal diplomatic relations in 1964.
Germany–Tanzania relations are the bilateral relations between Germany and Tanzania. From 1885 to 1918, Tanzania was a German colony as part of German East Africa. In the 21st century, relations are primarily characterized by the joint development cooperation.