Zanzibar - For the seventh year running, Sauti Za Busara music festival was back at Zanzibar’s Old Fort, a historical site that dates back 300 years.
This year’s festival took special interest in female musicians, as Yusuf Mahmoud, the Festival Director, put it that when the festival started in 2004, “it was a struggle to programme women musicians as there were so few in the region.”
And the special honour to open the four-day festival on February 11 was given to our own Juliana Kanyomozi.
Juliana was chosen for her achievements back home. She has curtain raised for big names like Youssou N’Dour and is an award-winning artiste. She was therefore perfect for the first performance before Pemba’s KVZ Tupendane and Zanzibar’s Ikwani Safaa Musical Club.
The venue was busy with visitors of all ages and background. Patrons had come from as far as the mainland Dar-es-salaam to watch Juliana’s performance. United Nations Tanzania had offered to transport her.
But at the last hour, news came in that the Ugandan diva had not turned up, disappointing her fans and losing a prime opportunity to market Uganda. This year, Uganda had three representatives, including little known Sosolya Dance Academy and Joel Sebunjo.
Sebunjo with his Sundiata band were scheduled to perform on Friday. But whoever lined up Sebunjo on the same day with Guinea’s Ba Cissoko and Senegal’s Malick Pathe Sow should have known that with the West Africans in the house, you do not crave another Kora player.
The young multi-instrumentalist looked like fish out of the water. He has camped with the Griots for a long time and he definitely knew what would come after his performance.
He looked frightened; his Kora was poorly tuned and lacked coordination with his back up team. Yet Sebunjo has shared the bill with big names such as Youssou N’Dour, Salif Keita, Miriam Makeba, Oliver Mtukudzi and Etran Finatawa among others.
But when Ba Cissoko came on stage, Sebunjo was reduced to a Kora student. It is like the Kora just flows in the blood of the Griots. The last born of a long lineage of the Griots who are master singers and agile strong pluckers, Ba Cissoko makes you enjoy African sound to the fullest.
And the acoustic guitarist, oh God! Where do guys like Bukko get their guitar lessons? Abdoulaye Kouyate makes the guitar speak to your soul. He plays it with a lot of passion and that smile on his face resonates well with the sweet sound from the guitar. He knows how to marry it perfectly with the Kora. For once, I thought, I could feed on music alone.
It is Sosolya Dance Academy that tried to resurrect Uganda’s hopes. In 40 minutes, the group comprising young artistes took guests through a relaxing trip across Uganda’s rich culture.
And it was a thrilling moment that captured everyone’s attention and camera. The group started off with Amagunju traded on Buganda’s local drums. They then took us to the west with Kitaguriro, Runyege-Ntogoro and Ntware. From the north, the group sampled Ajorina and West Nile’s Gaze dance.
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Loosing one s Native Rites Is like loosing ones self written by Alison Gibbs , February 23, 2010
I would like to first comend the good work done by The observer, are all the orther media houses ignorant about one of the bigest African music festival, Joel Sebunjo a known respected instrumentalist back home lost his self in this world of fusions, watching him on stage that fateful day with the Kora i wished he had played our own thumb piano, lyre, tube fidle e.t.c this is how you represent your mother land and these are instruments that are in his lineage for over 700yrs, Ugandans its high time we started being patriotic to our motherland. Bravo the Observer for covering our own sons and dauthers,Bravo Sosolya Dance Academy who im expecting to know more from the observer
Oh Uganda!........ written by Lezon Mark Mugwanya aka VjMark , February 24, 2010
With all the East African Community talk that we read daily in our print media i think Ugandan media is way behind when it comes to information beyond borders, i was shocked that only Observer and Gaetano were the only guys from home at such a big Gigg,
no wonder our guys cowardised if you look at the list of media houses that covered the event where were the so called leading daily's? and Gaetano dis appeared like thin air maybe he was on holiday in Zanzibar or other special assignment,commend observer for patriotic investigative journalism with out you guys Uganda would be in the dark about the biggest Music event in our own region,
iam watching this space for " Why Uganda media cut Sauti Za Busara " i hope not UNDP Tanzania this time, Thanks for the courage you gave us.
Zanzibar - For the seventh year running, Sauti Za Busara music festival was back at Zanzibar’s Old Fort, a historical site that dates back 300 years.
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