Tanzania: The Zawose Queens to release debut album this June

The 11-track project will be released on CD, LP and digitally, with the title track now available on all digital platforms.

The mother-daughter duo are members of one of Tanzania’s most famous musical families, the Zawose Family, which hails from the historic coastal town of Bagamoyo.

The family, famous for playing traditional Gogo music, became well known in the 1990s under the leadership of brothers Lucas Ubi Zawose and Hukwe Ubi Zawose, who passed away in 2003.

The late Hukwe Zawose was Pendo’s father and Leah’s grandfather. He was also the father of Sinaubi Zawose, who is currently charting his own musical path with the Pamoja Zanzibar project.

Maisha will be released on Real World Records, the label founded by Peter Gabriel with whom Hukwe Zawose toured with and worked on a number of projects.

Maisha marks the first time that women from this famous musical family take their place as lead singers and performers. Like all the women in the Zawose family, they were once forbidden from the spotlight but with the aid of producers Oli Barton-Wood and Tom Excell, the duo was able to capture original songs that deftly blend the acoustic, electronic, traditional and modern.

Real World Records says The Zawose Queens began writing their first ever songs after attending workshops in songwriting and music production with visiting UK-based producers.

“The resulting collection of songs range from the stripped back and traditional-sounding to those treated with subtle electronic elements, with beats and drops and found sounds and switch-ups,” the label said.

“Maisha is a tale of the daily fight for a better life delivered in a potent ancient-to-future sound. On the track illimba and percussion and club-focused production including drums, synths and 808 bass seamlessly melds Zawose Queens’ vocals, with the Wamwiduka Band providing backing vocals and percussion.”

The music draws the sounds of the Wagogo people, whose joyous otherworldly vocals and polyphonic rhythms, thumb pianos and chizeze fiddles transport listeners to the arid, hilly Dodoma Region of central Tanzania where the Gogo people live.

Real World Records added: “There’s the connection to nature, to ceremony and ritual in their [The Zawose Queens’] dance-inspired fusion, their blend of the organic, harmonic and modern-day electronics. There are lyrics that tell, in their native Kigogo, of the passion for music, the wonders of life. Of pride in environment, in tradition. In their East African roots.”

The Zawose Queens will soon announce a series of shows in Europe and the UK, including a performance at the Peter Gabriel-founded WOMAD festival in London this July.

Pre-order Maisha here.