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.

Luo, Luhya, Kipsigis, Kikuyu, Nandi, Swahili, Wanga and Giriama tribes. Choirs and songs with string accompaniment on guitar, oud, mostly lyres — like the thum, with eight strings, made of cow-tendons.

‘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.

In front, trumpet and tenor saxophone, dominated by a wailing alto sound you can trace through to Dudu Pukwana; the bottom end, trombone or tuba or double bass; banjos strumming away; military-style drumming.

His fine guitar-picking and upbeat, carefree songs brought George Sibanda from Bulawayo the fame throughout southern Africa — and he was versioned in the US — which drove him to drink and an early grave.

The roots of marrabenta — compelling guitar-playing, and gritty songs about everyday issues, like having kids, sleeping around, snobbery and the supernatural.

Likembe thumb-piano get-togethers, yodels and ekidongo harps, leg-rattles, vocal knees-ups, magwala horn groups, flutes, xylophones and drums.

Six hundred Chagga singing on the slopes of Mt. Meru; one hundred Gogo on the plains near Dodoma. Funny songs by the Nyamwezi in Dar-es-Salaam; wigasha dance songs by the Sukuma near Lake Victoria; Masai chants.

Ligombo and nanga trough zithers, lamellophones, drumming, a flute requiem, Zanzibar grooves, a panpipe ensemble, a makondere horn band.

Sena and Ndau mbiras; Shangaan singing, drumming and xylophones; Chopi reedpipes and timbila xylophone orchestras, little girls playing ocarinas; Gitonga drums and singing horns.

Mostly unaccompanied singing; also with musical bows — just knockout, some of the most beautiful music there is —  flutes, and guitars and concertinas.

Singing, amongst ditlhaka reedpipes, and the lesiba mouth bow.

The bangwe zither, the one-stringed karigo lute, the kubu bow, the kalimba, malipenga gourd-kazoo marching music, choral and polyphonic singing.

The bangwe board zither, gourd kazoo big bands, tuned likhuba drum ensembles, virtuoso xylophone, a capella singing.

Assorted mbira, mouth bows, karimba, story-songs, mulanji flutes, panpipes, drums.

Scintillating East African dance music, from seventies Nairobi. The band’s name mangles ‘marquez le pas’, meaning ‘mark time’: sure enough, the beat is irresistible.

Menwar is a political and cultural spokesperson for the Creole minority in Mauritius, refreshing traditional musical forms like sega to put his messages across. The sound is lightly rootsy, dominated by drums and voices.

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.