Yes! It’s possible to export Bongo Flava without style biting

2016 may be gone, but most of the memories are still fresh in our heads. Ignoring the silly beefs, team them vs. team us talks and ‘kutafuta kiki’ shenanigans Bongo Flava had the best highlights compared to other entertainment industries in the country.

From enjoying good number of YouTube views, massive air plays to inter-continental show headlining, not to mention enough recognition in most of the awards both in Africa
and worldwide both in terms of nominations to those which were scooped. In a pretty biased opinion of mine, even the East African dedicated channels from MTV Base and Trace, is a result of these guys constantly flooding the market with music releases thus making more than half of the content.

Only slight problem however, was artists over borrowing of styles specifically Naija tunes, from melodies to adopted lingos in their song! One can only assume they did it to ride the wave ofsuccess Nigerian music has been receiving continental and worldwide.Well, we might give them a pass in the name of artistry but the truth is they over did it, to the point of fans airing them out.

Copying styles and Music fans in Tanzania is never a good mixture, it’s usually a hyped trend that people will vibe to and slowly getting tired off, I mean look at the Dansi scene and the whole Sebene movement which was heavily influenced by Bolingo from Congo, you couldn’t compare it with any type of music in the country at its peak both in terms of popularity and commercial success, but as they say every excess becomes a vice…biting style wasn’t enough to milk off, the bands started ‘importing’ stage dancers and singers straight from the source (Congo) now even the slowly fading Taarab is more relevant than Dansi/Sebene.

That being said, originality has its own taste and legacy, biting can only be overlooked when something is still finding its feet but that is stage long passed by bongo flava. It was in the late 90’s and early 20’s that bongo flava was finding itself, time when almost any song in Swahili that wasn’t taarab, gospel or dansi could be called bongo flava, so why now that its strong enough and has the potential of becoming one of the biggest genre in Africa should it be impurified?

Luckily complaints were heard, artists took a turn and went back local, choosing to embrace more of traditional tunes and flavors or just doing plain bongo flava. Reception had been overwhelming with most fans happy that artists are slowly ditching the Naija trend, besides that’s what they have been saying in the last 2-3 years.

And to top it off, a number of the hits released in the last quarter of 2016 which were heavily influenced by our local flavors did very good and still going strong, with
Diamond and Belle 9 both deciding to payhomage to one of the great in the country Saida Karoli by sampling her classic hit,Maria Salome (Chambua kama karanga).

Salome by Diamond has even been named amongst the 10 biggest African tracks of 2016 by The Guardian, it’s really a sign that biting success of another style is not the only way to reach success or in this case, having a hit

So cheers to 2017, keep the good music alive and Bongo Flava on a map!

By Baraka W. Mgalula
Twitter: @Barker5lime