Reggae music is a popular music style that developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. Reggae movement hit the whole world in the ’70s with the lead figure Bob Marley, who became an icon for the African youth at the latest with his Africa-addressed 1979 hits ”Africa Unite” and ”Zimbabwe”, alongside with his legendary performance for Zimbabwe’s celebration of independence in 1980 in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. Marley’s lyrics about black oppression, life in the ghetto, and pan-Africanism resonated strongly with the African audience. Reggae has been a prominent genre of music in the African continent ever since with international superstars like Alpha Blondy from Ivory Coast and Lucky Dube from South Africa (Whitwam; Remes, 1999; Dagnini, 2010; Matiashe, 2020).

Reggae music is largely inspired by Rastafarianism, which is intrinsically connected to Africa. The repatriation of the African diaspora to Africa is one of the main doctrines of the Rastafari religion and social movement, originated in the Jamaican black community. In the late ’60s, Tanzania became a country of focus for the Pan-African movement and a sort of promised land for repatriation for the Rastafari because of the nation’s political stability and it’s first president Julius Nyerere’s ujamaa politics, sometimes translated as African socialism (Bedasse, 2017, p. 48-77). Nyerere emphasized that constituting a free African decolonized socialist nation was not so much about building everything anew as it was about remembering and relaunching the communal history and indigenous culture of Africa with pride. This resonated well with the Rastafari philosophy that people of African descent did not need to ”become” Rastafari, as the Rasta consciousness is something innate to be ”realized”. As many Rastafari repatriated in Tanzania through the years and many Tanzanians adopted Rasta culture and ideology, the yellow, red, and green rasta colors became an important segment in the field of Tanzanian sub-culture to this day.

When I arrived in Dar Es Salaam on a Saturday at 6 AM, Kifimbo and his rasta friend Omary Kussi came to pick me up from the airport with a bajaji (a three-wheeled auto rickshaw known as tuk-tuk in Thailand) and we headed straight to a reggae bar in Masaki called Rastaland for morning coffee and refreshments. The place was run by rasta Bobo, Kifimbo’s good friend, and a devoted Rastafarian. Reggae music was playing and there were people around, some of them stopping by on the way to work and some of them probably having a very long Friday. Starting from the first moments of my fieldwork, I met a lot of people who more or less identify themselves with Rasta culture. I met Rastafarianism in many forms and levels of devotion: Tanzanian rastas with big dreads speaking in patois (Jamaican Creole) about shitstem and politrics, middle-aged bald businessmen pointing out their innate rasta man-ness over a pre-work morning joint at a Rasta bar, young girls with dreads, necklaces and Facebook profile pictures in rasta coloring, young beach boys with dreadlocks charming the tourists playing acoustic guitar by the beach fire, a Jamaican repatriated Rastafarian man with short hair and strong opinions about the realness of the beach boy Rastafarianism, healthy food and music, etc.  Rasta culture is a globalized culture that naturally has a lot of variation as most global social and religious movements seem to have, but to generalize being a rasta in Tanzania connotes in my perception to critical thinking and politics, counterculture, the pride of African culture, natural lifestyle, smoking the herb, rasta colors and symbols and strong sense of brotherhood and sisterhood.

Kifimbo is indeed a rastaman. He has long dreadlocks and he uses many Jamaican rasta words, greetings and phrases like ”Wa gwaan?”, ”Yes I” (both mean hello), ”Irie” (everything is alright), ”Fyuah bun” (an idiom for something being strong in spirit), and so on. In a discussion about what being a rasta means for him, he stated that it is the life philosophy of peace and love, helpfulness, and respect and not being quarrelsome. He’s Rastafarianism is not the most traditionally devoted and religious kind, as his worldview is his own hybrid combination of Muslim, rasta, and his individual beliefs. Kifimbo was introduced to reggae music in his early twenties and about the same time he started to grow dreadlocks. He felt that reggae expression resonated with him and realized that he could do it himself. Coming from a background of traditional music, it was natural for him to combine reggae songwriting with traditional rhythms and drumming. Reggae one-drop rhythm, that consists of the rhythm section of drums, bass and guitar emphasizing the second and the fourth beat is very well combinable with different kind of percussion patterns. As Alan Waters writes in an essay ”Reggae Music in Africa”:

”The meaning of the reggae rhythm lies in the creation and management of rhythmic tension. This constant orientation toward rhythmic tension is behind the deep aesthetic affinity between reggae music and African cultures; it enables reggae to serve as a kind of container into which musicians from vastly different styles and traditions throughout Africa can put their own indigenous music” (1994).

Most of the songs on Mwana Mkala have a reggae flavor, at least as a certain emphasis on the 2nd and 4th beat in rhythm. Sema Basi and Simba are closest to ”pure” reggae as they have a distinct reggae beats. The influence of reggae singers such as Bob Marley,  Peter Tosh, and Lucky Dube can be heard in Kifimbo’s intense singing style and phrasing. Like many other rasta reggae artists, he wants to include deep meaning and political messages in his songs instead of singing only about partying and romance.