Sauti Za Busara translates to “sounds of wisdom” in Swahili, and is the most famous festival held in East Africa. I’d been dreaming about going for years. Featuring music from across the region and situated on a distant island at the center of an ancient trade route, famous for its beaches and spices, the festival promised access to a less musically explored part of the world. With only the faintest notion about Taarab music, a tradition that evolved out of the confluence of Arab, Indian and East African populations in Zanzibar and the coast of Kenya and Tanzania, I set out to experience and learn more about the mysterious traditions born from the unique history in this part of the world. “The friendliest festival on the planet,” quoted from some obscure review, is sprawled across all of the festival literature, which despite its tackiness, I admittedly found additionally reassuring before embarking half way across the world.
The festival started with the rumbling shamanic incantations of Chang Jae-Hyo (South Korea) carrying across the catchy African folk guitar riffs of Peter Solo (Togo), underlied by increasingly intense and complex drum rhythms. Zimbabwe’s famous singer Chiwoniso harmonized with Peter Solo and then Sakaki Mango (Japan) moved center stage gripping a flat square shaker, and trance-like descended to the ground, shaker still in hand, legs up, whistles blowing, hands clapping, smiles beaming across the stage. Chouchou Bass’s (Cameroon) gripping bass line tied it all together.
Maulidi ya Homu ya Mtendeni were a visually arresting group of Zanzibari Muslim men dressed in long white gowns and white caps. Arranged in two lines, they chanted hypnotically, undulating their bodies, arms and hands in one increasingly intense synchronized wave. According to the festival’s website, they are one of four remaining groups of this kind in the world. Wanyambukwa Artist Group, also with a recording, dressed in stunning feathered headdresses and armbands that looked like wings, danced sang and drummed in the powerful and beautiful tradition of the Gogo people from Tanzania. One festival highlight was the motley crew of Japanese, Korean and African musicians that make up Sukiyaki Sukiafrica Allstars, a rare group of musicians from different cultural traditions who are in total sync and able to transcend their individual languages.
Even in its eighth incarnation, with a growing number of yearly attenders and international attention, the festival still retains an intimate feel. The entire festival takes place inside the old fort, where festival goers, organizers, and musicians all mingle about on the same grounds, inside the protected walls, making it easy to meet people and feel at ease. I easily found space at the front of the stage to record and photograph my favorite acts, a roomy spot on the ground to rest and would often retreat to the fresh juice bar in the back where I would inevitably bump into friends made the night before. Friday and Saturday night got more crowded with the influx of beer drinking weekenders from Dar Es Salaam and other nearby towns. I ducked out to explore the festival market by the entrance of the fort, where I picked up a Kayamb, a thin rectangular shaker used in music from the Indian Ocean Islands and parts of the East African coast. Christine Salem from Reunion Island was playing a kayamb, and it was one of the best discoveries I made at the festival. Salem sings in the Maloya tradition, a music and culture derived from the black slaves from Reunion Island and banned by the French colonizers until the 80’s. Accompanied by only percussion, her raw and powerful voice carries the sound of her slave ancestors, unearthed after generations. She is one of the best singers in the tradition after Danyel Waro, her mentor.
On the last night, members of the brilliant Zambian dance, drum and theater group Nomakanjani (“no matter what”) formed a small spontaneous dance circle at the back of the fort, where people took turns jumping in and showing their moves. In the traditional spirit, anyone who wanted to join was welcomed and supported. One of the group’s young founders, Peter Tembo, explained how through music, dance and theater, Nomakanjani reaches out to local communities and youth in their native Zambia to spread awareness of vital health and social issues. They also aim to help preserve traditions that the youth are ignoring in favor of imported hip hop and other commercial music. I marvelled to see an example of young people honoring their history and heritage, much of which has been lost to our modern western culture.
Sauti Za Busara’s beauty is in creating an intimate space for artists, music lovers and organizers to meet and learn about traditions and emerging talent that have almost no airspace in the commercially driven media. Music from West Africa has garnered much acclaim over the last decades, with the success of artists such as Cesaria Evora from Cape Verde, and Ali Farka Toure from Mali. Nigeria’s afro-beat legend Fela Kuti has a broadway show about him, and even music from the desert nomads in North Africa has made it into the mainstream with groups such as Tinariwen. With exception to Ethiopiques, a brilliant and popular series of compilations covering Ethiopian music history, music from the East coast of the continent remains undeservedly obscure to most of us.
Sauti Za Busara does much to address this, fulfilling its promise of being “friendly” by making so many wonderful and otherwise difficult to access music available for all to enjoy, in a beautiful setting and on a scale that allowed and even fostered exchanges. Ticket prices were very reasonable at $52 for five days and less than a dollar a day for local residents. Apart from the blazing heat and the inconvenience of having to move hotels four times in six days because I booked so late, I still thought it was one of the best music festivals around.
If you can’t make it to Zanzibar, click here for a playlist inspired by Sauti Za Busara.
