Orchestra Safari Sound (OSS) was a major Tanzanian muziki wa dansi band in the 1970s. Along with Orchestra Maquis Original, OSS contributed to the evolution of dansi, introducing a slower-paced and more melodic style that further differentiated dansi from its ancestor genre, the Congolese soukous. The band was led by Ndala Kasheba, one of the most popular musicians in Tanzanian pop music.
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; Comoro Islands at 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.
Muziki wa dansi, or simply dansi, is a Tanzanian music genre, derivative of Congolese soukous. It is sometimes called Swahili jazz because most dansi lyrics are in Swahili, and "jazz" is an umbrella term used in Central and Eastern Africa to refer to soukous, highlife, and other dance music and big band genres. Muziki wa dansi can also be referred to as Tanzanian rumba, as "african rumba" is another name for soukous.
Orchestra Maquis Original is a Tanzanian muziki wa dansi band, originally from DR Congo. Founded in 1970 and still in activity, it is one of the most long-lived dansi bands.
As a difference with respect to most dansi bands, that were mostly managed by government institutions, OSS was the property of an entrepreneur, Hugo Kisima. In 1985, Kisima disbanded OSS to found another successful ensemble, International Orchestra Safari Sound (IOSS). Numerous music groups have positioned Tanzania on the international map. Indeed, regardless of the currently famed bongo fava, a type of music that has rattled entire sub-Saharan Africa, the post-independence era marked the growth and development of some of the lost famed musical groups in the East African nation. Among the most popular musical groups in post-independence Tanzania, perhaps the international orchestra safari sound (IOSS) was the most popular musical group in the nation. Typically, many music groups in Tanzania and greater east African in the post-independence era were aggressive in their marketing and strategic popularization approaches after emancipation and freedom from the British rule. Unfortunately, such aggressiveness was not usually beneficial since it led to the fragmentation of such music groups; as such, a few of such entities lasted beyond ten years before metamorphosing into disintegrated factions of comprising of solo individuals. Hence, the IOSS adopted a similar trend, an aspect that restrained its lifespan from 1985 to 1992. During its formative years, the IOSS was instrumental in inspiring various musicians that subsequently emerged to fame and steered Tanzania’s music industry to its current standings within the sub-Saharan entertainment industry. For example, research by Rosenberg (2011) illustrates an inextricable link between the music style of the IOSS as well as the current conventional famed trends of bongo fava. Precisely, the inherent need to reflect Tanzania’s culture and typical aspects of daily was an underlying core to the IOSS. Hence, the IOSS established a form and theme that underscored the principles and verbal art of Tanzania, which subsequently propagated to the current generation (Suriano, 2007; Graebner, 2019). Furthermore, even though the IOSS has initially been a reserved and mainly a conservative faction, it eventually inspired a generation of bongo fava that metamorphosed the Tanzania music to reflect the thriving urban culture and the new generation that had tasted globalization.
International Orchestra Safari Sound was a popular muziki wa dansi Tanzanian band from 1985 to 1992.
