Yangeyange Arts

Yangeyange Arts is a Wagogo cultural group from the central Tanzanian region around the city of Dodoma. Tanzania has up to 120 ethnic groups, depending on how you count, and none accounts for more than a few percent of the overall population, so there is no dominant ethnic culture or sound. That said, the one traditional Tanzanian musical genre to achieve worldwide fame is the distinctly Wagogo music of the late Dr. Hukwe Zawose (1938-2003). He became a favorite of world music fans everywhere by virtue of his releases on the Real World label. Zawose refined Wagogo instruments, particularly the deep-toned, hollow thumb piano called ilimba (sometimes called marimba), and the bowed zeze fiddle with its beautiful, otherworldly overtones.

Yangeyange Arts was formed in 1998 as a group with a social mission, to uplift the lives of blind and other disabled people through performance arts. The group quickly recruited a talented, multi-generational set of musicians and began performing at festivals, first in Tanzania, then around the region, and soon, as far a field as Ivory Coast and the Netherlands. At the 2004 Sauti za Busara festival in Stonetown, Zanzibar, Yangeyange Arts delivered a powerful set. A 16-year-old boy whirled out energetic, cycling zeze melodies, while a blind, old man croaked in a style of Wagogo singing very close to the most gravelly variety of Tuvan throat singing. Personnel shifted constantly as sound textures changed from chorus to solo voices to joyful ululating, from the rolling triplets of ilimba grooves, to songs featuring all manner of zezes, including one as big as a West African kora.

The group was well received by the Zanzibaris, although few of the locals had ever heard Wagogo music before. Such is the cultural divide between Muslim Zanzibar and the mostly Christian mainland. The group's manager and spokesman Desdery Kuzenza thought he knew why. "When you talk about traditional music," he said after the set, "most of those people have some Bantu origins. So we have some ideas of Bantu fusions. Nowadays, people are more influenced by hip-hop culture, and R&B and all that. That's the reason they are a tough audience. They are more influenced by the Western culture. But we are confident in what we are doing. We're doing it deep. It's original. So automatically, these people felt it. It's part of their tradition. It's part of their Bantu side. So they responded to that."

For stagecraft, polish, and sheer musical power, Yangeyange Arts was certainly among the very best traditional groups who performed at the Sauti za Busara festival.— Banning Eyre, Afropop.org