Artists

Consisting of nine artists, Jagwa Music are the leading exponents of the Mchiriku style, which originated 20 years ago in the poor suburbs of Dar es Salaam; when cheap Casio keyboards first became available.

Jagwa Music and their peers were immediately attracted by the Casio’s lo-fi sound, adopted read more

John Simon, aka Joh Makini hails from Arusha, a city with a highly credible "hard core" emergent Swahili hiphop scene. He has been involved in music since 1997 but it wasn't until 2004 that his name started to be spoken in almost reverential terms. This coincided with the release of read more

Born Joseph Mayanja, Chameleone is known for his stimulating live performances, and is revered as one of East Africa's most versatile, creative and crowd-pleasing artists. He is frequently in demand regionally and internationally. Chameleone has been nominated for Kora Awards, Golden Awards, MOBO Awards and has won two PAM (Pearl read more

Juma Kassim Mohamed Kiroboto, aka Juma Nature, is one of East Africa's most talented and loved hiphop artists. His ability to play with words and creativity in composition and flowing "kighettoghetto" is something which most hiphop artists in the world fail to come close to. Nature is one of the read more

Jupiter Bokondji was born in Kinshasa 48 years ago, into a family of griots from the Mongo region. His grandmother, a renowned healer, introduced him to traditional rhythm and music including the famous Zebola from Ekonda (Mongo région of the equator), rhythms that are said to cure the sick. From read more

Katapila Ngoma started in 1980, with 15 musicians playing traditional drum and dance music of the Pogoro tribe, from Morogoro region of mainland Tanzania.

Around 1986 they added more cultural traditions to their regular repertoire, including sindimba, lizombe and others. From 1990 their fanbase started to explode, when they developed a read more