Music Festival: Sauti za Busara (Trip II)

The "side" stage

My first trip to Sauti za Busara was in 2015 when my brother came to visit me. I had such an amazing time that I vowed to attend every single year that I lived in Tanzania. Unfortunately the following year the festival was canceled due to lack of funding and then last year I didn't make it for a variety of reasons. However, this year I decided that we had to try to make it to the festival since I've been missing live music! I had also managed to visit Zanzibar a few times while Ana had never been, so we thought the fest was a perfect excuse to visit Zanzibar.

Sauti za Busara was as good as I remembered it, if not better. I can't say enough great things about the atmosphere, music, and people. As a musician and music lover, four days of music performed by artists hailing from South Africa to Egypt is a dream come true. Late afternoon music started at 4pm at the public venue of Forodhani Gardens. With the ocean in the background and the sun setting behind us, we listened to a powerful womans group from Reunion, rocked to a Congolese ensemble, and grooved to an Algerian fusion band. At 7pm the music moves inside the Old Fort; a huge partitioned castle built in 1799 with a small amphitheater on one side and a large stage set up on the other. Vendors lined the sides with food and other products but exit and reentry was easy if one wanted to walk literally across the street to Forodhani Gardens where dozens of food vendors sold a variety of food.

Music played on both stages from 7:00pm to 1:30am and the organizers kept to the schedule extremely well.  The diversity of music was incredible; my highlights included a Taarab-style Tanzanian fusion band, an all women's percussion and singing ensemble from Reunion, a R&B-like Senegalese band prominently featuring the sound of the kora, and a John McLaughlin-esque guitarist from Malawi. Some acts mixed in drama and story telling with elaborate costumes and acting. Other acts were full electric while others had unamplified instruments. What I enjoyed the most were bands that mixed old and new; whether instruments, sounds, or presentation. Much of the music failed to be categorized by my musical vocabulary...was it traditional, fusion, modern, R&B, rumba, taarab??? The feeling of a new sound with not only the music but also the presentation was exciting and refreshing.

At the risk of sounding cliché, aside from the music, the spirit of the festival is really what made the fest special. Perhaps it's because I live in a field camp isolated from most of the world beyond our rural work area, but I was overwhelmed but the diversity of festival attendees and general vibe of the concerts. While western foreign countries were well represented, African countries were also equally represented in the crowd; I met people from Japan, Germany, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. The fest was also well represented by native Zanibarians, which I felt added to the inclusive and welcoming atmosphere. I felt so good seeing young Zanzibari ladies in a full hijab dancing to the beats of a Tanzanian afro-soul singer or a group of young local guys having a dance off to a Moroccan afro-pop group. Families with young children were common in the early hours of the fest and the event could certainly be dubbed as family friendly. I didn't see one individual staggering drunk nor did I witness any raunchy or tasteless dancing.

The only negative aspect of the festival was that I failed to get enough sleep. Burning the candle at both ends left us exhausted at the end of the fest. We'd stay out till 2am and then wake up around 7am the next morning for an activity (lazy beach day, hike in Jozani forest, snorkeling at nearby reef), perhaps catch a nap in the afternoon, and then go and dance for five hours straight. A beautiful time and we couldn't help ourselves but hard to squeeze all the enjoyment each day in only 24 hours!

Notable acts:
CAC Fusion (Tanzania)
El Dey (Algeria)
Ernest Ikwanga (Malawai)
Inganzo Ngari (Rwanda)
Kasai All Stars (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Simangavole (Reunion)
Simbin Project (Senegal)

The main stage

The outdoor stage