‘Little Thing’ began her singing career in the 1920s. This spans the last twenty years, with illustrious ensembles like the Culture Music Club and the Zanzibar Taarab All Stars.

Swahili music from the eastern coast of Africa — Lamu, Mombasa, Tanga, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and the Comoros. Archival in amongst contemporary recordings.

Spicy, deep, sensual Arab, Black and Asian styles, lipsmackingly mixed together in classic Taarab — when electric guitars, bass guitars, organs and kit drums kicked orchestral instruments out of bed.

A fabulous selection of Swahili popular music from the East African coast — Lamu, Mombasa, Tanga, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and the Comoros — taking in Tanzanian dance-band music, Congolese-style rumba and the hypnotic, Islamic sounds of Taarab, from the 1960s to date.

Cream-of-the-crop, fabulous, firing dance music from Dar es-Salaam, rocking between shimmering, swinging guitars and delirious, riffing horns. Check the rest of the series, especially Volume 2.

A form of Sufi music with its roots in the ancient Arab world, surviving only in Zanzibar: slowly building in intensity, with songs and poetry, and passages for dancing, featuring a wide range of percussion.

Three singers a cappella, or with rattle and djembe, emulate the beautiful sound of the insingizi rain bird. Traditional, gospel, warrior-chant and political songs.

Judith Juma’s wonderful mbira playing — shona ritual music, with singing, drum and rattle.

An early seventies South African expression of the London Beat scene, mixing in R&B, funk and moon-stomping, organ-led reggae. The 45s Reggae Shh! and Reggae Meadowlands were big underground hits on the Mod scene.
Featuring top-notch South Africa session musicians like guitarist Johnny Fourie and keyboardist Zane Cronje.

The masterful Greek folk violinist. ‘So raw and unmediated that anyone who has ever yearned for anything will feel these songs like a club to the back of the knees…immediate, destructive, and stunning.’ Crumb artwork.

Deep taarab from 1982.
Zuhura and co came through the Mombasa scene of the 1970s, with a more uptempo musical style, and with Zuhura turning away from the usual Bollywood influences towards traditional Swahili poetry, for her direct, feminist lyrics.

‘Amazing! Like stumbling on a treasure-trove of unheard Charlie Patton and Blind Willie McTell 78s, but imbued with the spirit of Mahlathini and Ladysmith Black Mambazo,’ says Joe Boyd.