Tanzania: Marafiki Music Festival set for 5-8 October

Now in its fourth year, the festival will take place at Makumbusho Village Museum in Dar es Salaam from 5 to 7 October before moving to Firefly in Bagamoyo on 8 October.

Artists on the line-up include Dulla Makabila (Tanzania), Damian Soul (Tanzania), Msafiri Zawose (Tanzania), Amini (Tanzania), Carola Kinasha (Tanzania), Leo Mkanyia (Tanzania), Kadilida (Tanzania), Baba Kash (Tanzania), Hoko Roro (Tanzania), Hussein Masimbi (Tanzania), Alamoka (Tanzania), Salma Munde (Tanzania), Kom Zot (Reunion), Simangavole (Reunion), Sun Xa Experiment (South Africa), Jemedari (Kenya) and Fadhilee Itulya (Kenya).

Marafiki Music Festival is organised by Art for Social and Economic Development in Africa (ASEDEVA) in partnership with recording label Weka Music. ASEDEVA is an art NPO working in Tanzania to organise cultural and art projects, events, festivals and training for artists and performances. It aims to benefit local artists and the Tanzanian performing arts community as a whole.

ASEDEVA has managed to establish an annual series of events and festivals such as Haba na Haba International Dance Festival every year in July and Marafiki Music Festival every year in October.

Marafiki is one of East Africa’s fastest growing live music festival. It brings together local and international showcasing artists and offers music education through professional workshops. The event hosts different stakeholders and experts to share their experience and knowledge with artists in order to build artist capacity in various areas of their art and creativity.

This year, Marafiki Music Festival will be attached to the SANAAPRO Project, which is funded by the French embassy in Tanzania. Through this support, Marafiki will be able to bring artists and music professionals from different countries to perform and conduct training for local musicians.

Workshops

The festival will include a three-day workshop from 5 to 7 October followed by discussion about music branding and how to make genres such as Afro-fusion, bongo-fusion and world music relevant and consumable for the Tanzanian, East African and the European markets.

The following topics will be covered during the conversation/panel wrap-up discussion and workshop: 

• Growing your brand towards international markets.
• Fusion technique on traditional and contemporary music.
• Publishing and copyright.

The workshops will run between 10am and 4pm, with the facilitators and venue to be announced in September.

How to join the workshops

Marafiki Music Festival is calling on musicians and other creatives to register for the workshops by calling or sending an SMS to 255 (0)754 325 213, or emailing marafikimusicfestival@gmail.com or info@marafikifestival.org. Space is limited.

More info is available on the official website.