Living rooms in Dar es Salaam – a photographic essay. Abstract: The photographic essay presents insides of eleven livingrooms in Dar es Salaam. An short introduction suggests to interpret living rooms as a media format, designed by its inhabitans, staging their personality.
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Tanzanian music videos in the black atlantic: The production, distribution and visual references of Bongo Flava video clips. Abstract: Music videos became the most important medium in the Tanzanian Bongo Flava Music in the first 10 years of the new Millennium. Between 2004 and 2011 the author worked as a camera man in about ten Tanzanian music video productions.
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The Bongo Flava industry in Tanzania and artists’ strategies for success. >> als PDF (english) Abstract: Bongo Flava, the Tanzanian category of contemporary urban youth music is related to four simultaneous developments: democratization, privatization, globalization and media digitalization. Stylistically, it comprises Hip-hop and R&B as well as other styles which have been appropriated by local artists who rap or sing mostly in Swahili. This article explores this cultural phenomenon in the context of social upward mobility. From the beginning Bongo Flava has been regarded as a mouthpiece for the youth and the ordinary people. At the same time it was always seen as a means to escape poverty and to achieve a better life. The narrative of the meteoric rise is derived from American Hip Hop imagination, as well as from local models. However, there are many players in the field of Bongo Flava in Tanzania, with whom the aspiring artists have to cope. These include studios, producers, distributors, radio and TV presenters, the press, the audience etc., but also their fellow artists from other crews and formations. This article looks at the social side of the Bongo Flava, the groupings that are built, developed, or, eventually, broken up, as well as larger networks that exist between the artists and the other players in the field, and the ways the artists use them for their goal of making their way up. It also examines how the artists cope with difficulties such as enviousness and greed in their social relations. It is argued that the experience acquired in the field of Bongo Flava can be seen as a form of capital that can be used for other purposes as well. This includes experiences with studios, the media, as well as stage experience and self-promotion. The study is based on field research in Tanzania from 2001 to 2011.
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The Creation of ‚Africa‘ in Tanzanian Music Videos. Abstract: The first TV-stations in mainland Tanzania opened after the end of Tanzanias „African socialist“ period in the year 1994 and filled their airtime with US-American music video clips. Today most of the music videos in Tanzanian TV programms are produced by the growing local video industry of the Metropolis Dar es Salaam. Beside the other popular music styles Dansi, Taarab, Injili and Ngoma, most videoclips are Bongo Flava – a music genre that emerged from the adoption of Afro-American Rap, R&B, and Reggae music. In comparison to live shows or broadcasting on radio, musicans as well as their local audience imagine a global public for these music videos. As a consequence, the representation of „Africa“ gets more important in the audio visual media, because producers know about the value of the „local“ in the „global“. In the visual creation of this „Africa“, they revert to different common ideas of urban and rural, modern and traditional „Africa“. Showing sample Bongo Flava video clips, the paper presents and questions some of these ideas. It is based on an fieldwork in Dar es Salaam/Tanzania between March and August 2009.
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Glokalisierung im Entwicklungsprozess des tansanischen HipHop'. >>als PDF (deutsch) Zusammenfassung: Der kurze Artikel zeichnet bedeutende Etappen in der Geschichte der tanzanischen Rapmusik nach. Während in der akademischen Auseinandersetzung mit Bongo Flava tendenziell die lokalen Eigenheiten und damit die Ablösung von den afroamerikanischen Vorbildern herrausgestellt werden, wird hier argumentiert, dass die Musiker den Kunstgriff vollbringen, ihre Identifikation mit den medial vermittelten afroamerikanischen Stilen und ihre Identifikation mit Tanzania zu integrieren.
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Bongo Flava - Populäre Kultur in Tansania. Eine Jugendkultur in den Auseinandersetzungen um „nationale Kultur“. Zusammenfassung: Stuard Hall beschreibt populäre Kultur als einen Gegenstand, um dessen Definitionshoheit subkulturelle Kräfte mit hegemonialen Kräften kämpfen. Unter dieser Perspektive erscheint der Musikstil Bongo Flava als ein Feld, in dem jugendliche Identifikationen mit der populären afroamerikanischen Musik öffentlich zelebriert werden und mit hegemonialen Vorstellungen von legitimer Kultur in einem konfrontativen Verhältnis stehen. Der Text gibt Einblicke in die strategische und kreative Beteiligung der jugendkulturellen Künstler am Diskurs um "nationale Kultur" und basiert auf Feldforschungen zwischen 2001 und 2002.
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HipHop in Tanzania zwischen Message und Flava. >>als PDF (deutsch) Zusammenfassung: Der tansanische Diskurs um die neue lokale HipHop-Musik war um das Jahr 2000 geprägt von den emischen Kategorien Message und Flava. Als Flava und damit fremdkulturell galten Lieder, bei denen sich die Musiker zu offensichtlich an US-amerikanischen Vorbildern orientierten. Demgegenüber wurden Lieder als Message bezeichnet, wenn sie mit ihren Texten auf tansanische Themen Bezug nahmen und sich darin gesellschaftlich verantwortungsbewusst inszenierten.
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