VA - Tanzania: The Art of Hukwe Ubi Zawose [JVC]

Tanzania: The Art of Hukwe Ubi Zawose
Jvc/Sire
1994
B000003MOX

1. Sote Tulifurahia
2. Sisi Vijana - Lubeleje Chiute, Dickson Mkwama, Hukwe Zawose
3. Chilimba
4. Mateso - Lubeleje Chiute, Dickson Mkwama, Hukwe Zawose
5. Motyani
6. Lukunzi
7. Nelson Mandela
8. Tuna Haki Ya Kujivunia Utamaduni Wetu

Hukwe Ubi Zawose was born 1938 in Doduma, Tanzania,and died 30 December 2003.As a child Zawose tended the cattle on his family's farm, but also found the time to teach himself to play the izeze (Tanzanian violin), marimba (thumb piano),chirimba (a metal-tongued instrument plucked with the thumbs), and filimbi (traditional flute). Travelling to the villages near his home, he would play and sing and became a legend in his own land, a clan leader and community mentor who had single-handedly breathed new life into the ancient traditional music of the Wagogo people. His extraordinary 5-octave vocal range - switching between a high, feminine sound and a form of throat-singing and his exquisite playing of the buzzing ilimba thumb piano or the sensuous one-stringed izeze fiddle mesmerized audiences. As an adult he became a favourite artist of Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania and Zawose became sort of a living legend. Fantastic stories of mythical power rose, making Zawose an immortal and divine being; his voice possessed magical healing powers.Of his own talent, he said, "When I was a young man my voice was so sweet that people would often cry when I sang."

As much as the content, it's the ambience of Zawose's music that gets you. It moves unhurriedly, lulling in the sound of the ilimba (thumb piano) and izeze (fiddle). But once his voice (and those of Dickson L. Mkwama and Lubeleje M. Chiute, who accompany him here) enters, you're completely transported. You don't know what he's singing about, but you are there with him, as the birds' wings sound in the trees, and the leaves rustle in the forest. Good music should take you to another time and place, and by the time this is over, you feel as if you know Tanzania in your blood, its heartbeats, its traditions, and lore. And you can't ask for more from music than that.

it might not look like much but i guarantee it's one of the best things you never heard