Best of Taarab updated

I am still looking for a way to get some kind of logging of the changes and updates to earlier posts. In the meantime this update seems worth a separate post.

Posts which have been updated in 2016:

- Diabate (Abdoulaye Diabaté & Le Kéné Star)
- Staying O.K. (three O.K. Jazz singles)
- Succes Zaïrois (two compilations of 1960s Congolese hits)

The update to Best of taarab was sent to me by Pauly Becquart, residing in Tanzania.
He writes: "The cassette contains tracks from 4 volumes of "Best of Taarab" published earlier by Melodica, Nairobi.
Song B6 is named "Walimwengu wanaina" and song B7 is "Khiyana"; both are from Vol. 3 (see cover).

The infos I got at Melodica while buying these cassettes more than 20 years ago is that at the base the band is Black Star Musical Club with Kibwana Saidi and Sharmila at vocals.

Black Star Musical Club is a band originating from Tanga, Tanzania. At the time of these songs it was very difficult for Tanzanian band to travel for political reasons. Many bands recording in Kenya didn't want their name published as they didn't want to get into trouble in Tanzania. For this reason many records are published under wacky names (e.g. 'Ewe Mola' and 'Karibu ramadhani' published by Melodica on 7'' single on label Halal QM 001A under the name Yahoos Band & Hafusa Abbasi and also on the Vol. 4 of Best of Taarab under 'no name' ...)
(Tanzania never got any vinyl production up to now, perhaps this last couple of years because of the uprising of music production in Tz, but I don't think so, never had heard while still in contact with Tz musicians; turntable is a very very rare tool in Tz).

Anyway all tracks on these cassette are from Tanga's original Musical Clubs who had their own taarab style.
Band members recording are rarely the original members. To credit theses cassettes to Black Star Musical Club is not an error nor a big sin."

A flac version of this great cassette can be found here, but only until June 1, 2017: CS KSS 117. The updated mp3 version can be found with the original post.

Best of taarab

I am venturing into unknown territory in this post. I have to admit that normally I am not a great fan of taarab music. I suspect this may be because most of the recordings I have heard are too sedate, too polite. I have - with a, over time, growing reluctancy - heard quite a number of taarab recordings, and have come to the conclusion that "let's go crazy" hardly seems to apply to the taarab music I have heard. The more modern recordings even appear to have suppressed the passion and spiritual energy which can be detected in older recordings like those of the classic "Songs The Swahili Sing" collection.

The cassette I would like to share with you in this post carries the title of "Best of Taarab Songs Vol.1". And this may sound pretentious, but I prefer to see it as a challenge: if you have better taarab songs, please share them with us!!
The cassette was bought by a friend in Nairobi in 1988. Apart from the titles the cassette contains no information about artists, so there is another challenge in this: can anyone help us out with the artist(s)?
I wouldn't be surprised, by the way, if the whole cassette was by the same group.

Among the songs that stand out amidst this wealth of quality taarab songs are a speedy "Mbona Mwatufuja", a piercing "Mapenzi Yaku Nichumu", a spine tingling "Zuhura" (a reference to the singer?) and a strangely haunting "Roho Yangu".

Please don't hesitate to point us in the direction of even more remarkable taarab artists.....

CS KSS 117 (new link - November 30, 2016)