Resonation: Muziki wa dansi in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

By Nils von der Assen

The central topic of this thesis is Muziki wa Dansi (literally ‘dance music’, usually abbreviated to dansi), a type of Swahili dance music that rose to prominence in the 1930s, eventually to become the most dominant musical force in the urban centres of Tanzania. Since its inception, dansi has been particularly popular in Dar es Salaam, the city that served as the country’s capital between 1891 and 1974. Three months of fieldwork conducted in Dar es Salaam form the empirical basis of this study.