Between Mainland and Sea: The Taarab Music of Zanzibar

Abstract

Zanzibar – comprising the islands of Unguja and Pemba and a few smaller islets just off the East African coast – is one of the centres of what is generally called Swahili culture, an Islamic urban culture moulded by monsoons and contacts across the Indian Ocean. The characteristic sound, defining the islands’ aural landscape, is taarab music: traditionally in Zanzibar a lush orchestral sound produced by a variety of Oriental, African and Western instruments. Swahili language lyrics, heir to an old tradition of poetry, form a most important ingredient of taarab. The analysis of the early recordings of Swahili music shows a number of linkages between the East African Coast, music, dance on the Arabian Peninsula. Wedding festivities have become less extravagant affairs, live music has been replaced in large part by so-called rusha roho, the playing of music cassettes of various styles over a small sound system, thus collapsing a number of different musical events into a single one.