Bongo Flava is the name of a HipHop influenced music which – unnoticed by the rest of the world – has become the best selling pop music in East Africa today. It is a music of the post-socialism era channeled by a wave of new private radio stations. The name Bongo Flava comes from the Kiswahili word for brains: ubongo. Bongo is the nick name of Dar es Salaam. It means that you need brains to survive there. In cooperation with a student field researcher of university of Munich, the music enterprise outhere records, editing especially hiphop from Africa, published the first compilation of Bongo Flava in november: "Bongo Flava. Swahili rap from Tanzania".

You are welcome to join the release party at Färberei on Wednesday the 24th of November. 21:00.

Program: 9pm: We start with a film documentary on Bongo Flava, made by Berlin and Weimar students of anthropology. Afterwards: Bongo Flava music and music videos with DJ Rick de Passage and MC Dougall, party...

About the compilation: "Bongo Flava. Swahili rap from Tanzania" is a 70 minute ride through the streets of Dar es Salaam. It is a look at what youth in present urban East Africa thinks of and dreams about. Tanzanian youth started rapping in the 1980s fascinated by black US HipHop. They soon developped their own way of doing it and today the music has become a style characterized by the use of local melodies, beats, topics and their own language Kiswahili. Don't think anybody could have a hit singing in English nowadays. This compilation presents the hits by some of the most important Bongo Flava artists.

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