Music
“Malaika”: the Swahili love song from Kenya that Miriam Makeba took around the world
"Malaika", a Swahili love song recorded in Kenya by Fadhili William around 1960, became one of the best-known…
East African music
Music
Them Mushrooms and “Jambo Bwana”: the Kenyan hotel-band song every tourist knows
Them Mushrooms, a Kenyan band from the Mombasa coast, recorded "Jambo Bwana" in 1982. The Swahili song, with…
Music
Jose Chameleone: the Ugandan star who ruled East African music for two decades
Jose Chameleone, born Joseph Mayanja in Kampala in 1979, became one of East Africa's biggest music stars after…
Music
Bongo Flava: how Tanzanian hip-hop became East Africa’s biggest pop sound
Bongo Flava grew in Dar es Salaam in the 1990s as young Tanzanians rapped and sang in Swahili…
Arts + Culture
Benga: the Kenyan guitar sound built on the Luo nyatiti, and its champion D.O. Misiani
Benga, Kenya's best-known popular music, grew from Luo musicians adapting the rhythms of the nyatiti lyre to electric…
Arts + Culture
Singeli: the hyper-fast street music of Dar es Salaam
Singeli emerged in the mid-2000s in the crowded Dar es Salaam neighbourhoods of Tandale and Manzese, where DJs…
Music
Barack Obama danced the Lipala with Sauti Sol in 2015. How four Nairobi friends became Kenya’s biggest band
Sauti Sol, the Kenyan band formed by four friends in Nairobi in 2005, became East Africa's most successful…
Music
From Tandale to a media empire: how Diamond Platnumz turned bongo flava into a business
Diamond Platnumz, born Naseeb Abdul Juma in Dar es Salaam, became East Africa's biggest pop star and built…