Tanzanian Classics

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Tondo is a pop group with traditional flavor from Dar es Salaam. The band started out in 1998 with singer Eddy Sheggy, renowned for his voice and for the many songs that he has written since the 1970s. This album is made up of ten songs that are considered classics in the East African musical heritage. They are popular rhumba-style tracks glazed with lilting guitars and caramel vocals. From the late '40s through the '70s, it was the era of dance bands in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa. Cuban music proved to be very popular, mainly through the widespread availability of recordings of bands like Sexteto Habanero and Trio Matamoros. Tanzanian pop music began in the 1960s when Zairean (now Congolese) musicians migrated eastward, bringing Western guitars and wind instruments with them. During the 1970s, the Tanzanian style was forged from a mix of Congolese imitators singing in Swahili, other groups singing in English, and a growing exposure to Western pop, mainly soul and jazz. This blend of the traditional ngoma drumming, Congolese rhumba, Swahili jazz, and Western soul made for an extremely rich and potent brew. "Georgina" is a beautifully wrought example of the slow rhumba prelude to the faster Cuban-inflected seben. The quicksilver guitar work throughout the album is infectious, to say the least. This is dance music and shakes the hips, as it should. This is classic African music kept alive and beating. Highly recommended. ~ Mark Romano