Kelly Askew studies Taarab musical performance as a vehicle for understanding modern Swahili culture. The product of cross-fertilization in the Indian Ocean world, much of Taarab style and instrumentation came with merchant ship crews from Arabia and the Persian Gulf during the nineteenth century. However, unlike some scholars who insist that Taarab was first promoted through the court of the sultan of Zanzibar, Askew maintains that Taarab was a popular form for the outset, adopted independently in many towns along the East African coast, and appropriated with distinctly local or regional Swahili lyrics, motifs and rhythms.

In Kelly Askew's analysis, Taarab is distinguished by form, content and context. That is, its lyrics follow rhyme and meter in Swahili poetry, it is set to music, and its interpretation is metaphorical. Yet despite these conventions, Taarab is hardly a static genre. As Taraab gained a wider East African audience, both over time and across distances, Askew asserts that composers and performers innovated rhyming schemes, added new instruments, and injected contemporary themes into their lyrics. In particular, her research focuses on the content of Taarab music: love themes, social relationships, community critique, challenges or insults, and its context: women's wedding celebrations, public concerts or political rallies. And ultimately, she analyzes how Taarab serves a medium of social and political discourse.

LJ

Reading List:

Askew, K. Performing the Nation: Swahili Musical Performance and the Production of Tanzanian National Culture. (Chicago, 2002)

Bierstecker, A. Kijibinza: Questions of Language and Power in 19th and 20th Century Poetry in Kiswahili. (E. Lansing, 1996)

Cooper, F. From Slaves to Squatters. (New Haven, CT, 1980)

Daniels, D. H. "Taarab Clubs and Swahili Music Culture," Social Identities ii/3 (1996), 413-38

Fair, L. Pastimes & Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945. (Athens, OH, 2001)

Glassman, J. Feasts and Riot - Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888. (Portsmouth, NH, 1995)

Gunderson, F. and G. Barz, eds. Mashindano! Competitive Music Performance in East Africa. (Dar es Salaam, 2000)

Khatib, M. S. Taarab Zanzibar. (Dar es Salaam, 1989)

Knappert, J. "Swahili Taarab Songs," Afrika und Übersee, ix/1-2 (1977), 116-55

Martin, S. "Brass Bands and the Beni Phenomenon in Urban East Africa," African Music, vii/1 (1991), 71-8

Mirza, S. and M. Strobel. Three Swahili Women. (Bloomington, IN, 1989)

Mwai, W. K. "Power of the Song for the Swahili Woman," in W. Kabira and M. Masinjila, eds. Contesting Social Death: Essays in Gender and Culture. (Nairobi, 1997), 84-102

Ranger, T. O. Dance and Society in Eastern Africa 1890-1970. (Berkeley, CA, 1975)

Strobel, M. Muslim Women in Mombasa, 1890-1970. (New Haven, CT, 1979)

Swartz, M. The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations among the Mombasa Swahili. (Berkeley, CA, 1992)

Topan, F. "Song, Dance and the Continuity of Swahili Identity," in D. Parkin, ed. Continuity and Autonomy in Swahili Communities. (London, 1994)

Topp, F. J. "The Role of Women in Taarab in Zanzibar: an Historical Examination of a Process of Africanization," The World of Music, xxxv/2 (1993), 109-25

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Kelly Askew

Assistant Professor, Anthropology and Center for Afro-American and African Studies

University of Michigan

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