Artists

Founded in 2001 Matimba is a youth group based in Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam. Formed by 19 young artists they play a variety of different traditional dances from various regions of Tanzania, contemporary dances, acrobatics, theatre and choir. The group performs mainly in educational campaigning events around Tanzania as read more

Mohammed Issa Matona was born in 1969 in Paje, Zanzibar about 45 miles from Stone Town.

He received his primary and secondary education in Zanzibar and Morogoro but spent most of his time in making music from early age. He participated in football and athletics, but his favourite early hobby was read more

Maureen Lupo Lilanda aka “Mama Zambia” or fondly known in Zambia as “Aunty Maureen” is a singer-songwriter from Lusaka. Endurance, patience and generosity characterize Maureen best. Her music is warm, vibrant, and soulful; she covers decades of African inspiration but is nicely grounded in her motherland Zambia. read more

Mehdi Laifaoui is an Algerian artist, singer-songwriter and performer. His music mixes Bedouin and trab modes, a pentatonic music that gives Algerian rai music its uniquely African flavour. The majority of his repertoire are original compositions, with occasional revisited interpretations of rai standards from the 70s and 80s.

Mehdi Laifaoui read more

Mehdi Qamoum is a young artist who was born and raised in Agadir, Morocco. As he grew up, he embraced his family's traditional Gnawa music roots. He excelled in this field and formed his first music band at an early age. After hooking up with several well-known and highly read more

The idea for this group was born from Matona's desire to return to the roots of the traditional music of his childhood: the sounds and music played by the many inhabitants from Comoros who lived around Stone Town. Thanks to funding from Alliance Francaise and Japanese Trust, Matona was able read more