I first entered a studio to record with a band in 1982. This was after participating in the filming of a movie called ‘Wimbo wa Muanzi’, a film produced through a collaboration between the Tanzanian public company, Tanzania Film Company (TFC), and a Dutch company called One World Production.
Along with three friends from our Iringa band Chikwalachikwala—Ally Lashku on drums, the late William Maselenge on rhythm guitar, and the late Hashim Kasanga, the singer—we arrived at the TFC studios. The studios were located in Mikocheni, an area that later became known as Cine Club; nowadays, I see a sign for a Chinese hotel there.
We were shown the studio and found a group of musicians recording there, under the direction of Tchimanga Kalala Assossa. Other musicians accompanying him were Sadi Mnala, Huluka Uvuruge, George Mzee, Likisi Matola, Andre Milonge, Lucas Faustin, and Athumani Cholilo. They were recording a commercial for sanitary pads called Tampax Pads. We told them we had come to record music for a film and needed musicians to collaborate with, and they agreed. We rehearsed for about two weeks and then entered the studio; it was my first time in a studio. We finished recording six songs, two of which were used in the film as planned.
After that work, Assossa told us he had a plan to start a band. Discussions followed, leading to William Maselenge and me joining the band Assossa called Orchestra Mambo Bado.
Recording music for bands back then was a bit of difficult work. First, you had to rehearse very carefully because, with the technology of the time, called ‘two-track,’ the entire band had to play the music together as if on a stage show. There was no room for anyone to make a mistake during recording because a single mistake forced the entire song to be repeated. So, rehearsals before recording were very strict.
With today’s technology, if one person makes a mistake, they can even re-record their part alone to fix it, and it’s possible for musicians to come on different days to record the same song, a situation that can nowadays cause a single song to take even a whole month to complete recording. This ease of recording today is what reduces the necessity for intensive rehearsals these days, but it sure has watered down the togetherness feeling of a band.
After finishing the recording, Assossa explained to us that he wanted to start a band and welcomed us to join his band. Ally Lashku and Hashim Kasanga decided to return to Iringa. We joined Assossa, with William Maselenge as the rhythm guitarist and me as a singer. Following a style Assossa had experienced while in Congo, of naming a band after a popular song, our band was named Orchestra Mambo Bado. In his history, Tchimanga Assossa was one of the musicians of Orchestra Lipua Lipua who split from that band and started Orchestra Kamale; the song ‘Kamale’ by Lipua Lipua had once been a top song in Congo. And before starting Orchestra Mambo Bado, Assossa was a musician with Orchestra Makassy, which recorded a song called ‘Mambo Bado’ that was very popular and even became one of the first Tanzanian songs to be played in discos.
Orchestra Mambo Bado rehearsed very intensely for nearly two months at the Lango la Chuma hall in the Mabibo area. It was a new hall scheduled to be launched on the same day as Orchestra Mambo Bado would be launched. That hall was like our camp; some musicians got a place to sleep inside the hall itself. While we musicians were rehearsing, the band’s technicians’ job was to cook food. Rehearsals were every day from 9 AM to 4 PM, with breaks on Saturdays and Sundays, days when we would visit shows by other bands.
One day, while we were rehearsing, the owner of the hall came to watch the rehearsal and asked if we would get a crowd on the launch day. One of us showed that rich man a crack that had started on one of the hall’s gate pillars and told him that on launch day, the place would be so packed and the gate would collapse. That rich man responded, ‘Let it collapse, we’ll rebuild tomorrow’ (‘Bomoa tutajenga kesho’), and a song by that name was composed. The song that practically became the band trademark.
Finally, the day to go record arrived, and for the second time, I entered a studio to record. This time it was at the Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam (RTD) studios. Assossa gave each of us 3 shillings and told us it was the first time band musicians were paid before recording. This might be true because even after recording repeatedly with various bands afterwards, no other band had a system of paying musicians before entering the studio.
The recording schedule at RTD at that time was divided into two days. The first day, morning hours were used to set up equipment and prepare for recording; in the afternoon, after lunch, the musicians would enter the studio to record. Whatever number of songs the band had, the recording had to finish before 6 PM, as it was forbidden for anyone not an RTD employee to be inside the radio compound after the national flag was lowered at 6 PM.
On the second day, a live program named ‘Club Raha Leo’ was recorded. Participants were usually from public institutions, and the band would perform its new songs in the studio hall. The invited guests cheered, and the program was very good. To a listener, the program gave the impression that the show was in a large hall with happy people dancing and enjoying, but the hall was small; all the musicians and guests were crammed in there together. After recording that program, what followed was the airing of ‘Misakato’ program, the program where new songs recorded by RTD were played for the first time on the radio. This was a very exciting program to listen to after any recording. Sometimes the musicians would gather to listen together; it was also tense because that was when small mistakes would be noticed; this sometimes led to fights. People were very concerned about the quality of the production.
Some of the songs Orchestra Mambo Bado recorded were ‘Kutokuelewana’, ‘Mawazo’, ‘Jane’, ‘Chance’—which was a Lingala song and I was one of the singers (amusingly, I recorded it and went on to sing iin shows for a long time, yet to this day I don’t know the translation of the song!!!), we also recorded an instrumental song which we used as song for introducing bad members in live shows, ‘CCM Itashinda’, ‘Mama Yoyo’, and ‘Bomoa Tutajenga Kesho’. This song, ‘Bomoa Tutajenga Kesho’ ended up being banned by the Dar es Salaam Regional CCM youth wing. To this day, I have never known why this song was banned, especially remembering how we even got the idea to compose it. That song was not allowed to be played on the radio again. At that time, the youth wing had the power to issue such an order, and it was followed. We continued to play the song during live shows because it was very popular, and also used the song when our dancers—Chileshi Ali, Stela, and Nadhifa, and Pangapanga- performed their show in a style we called ‘Bomoa’.
Normally, a new song went through many processes before being recorded. Any musician was allowed to come up with a composition. So, when a musician got their idea, they would inform the band leader that they had a new song. All musicians were called to listen to that new song. Usually, we would gather and form a circle to listen to the new composition. This was the first filter, because it was very common for a song to be rejected early on, either because it resembled another song, seemed to lack a coherent story, or the melody didn’t please the ear. There were strong insults that, if you had a thin skin, would make you hesitant to bring your composition to your colleagues again. The band leader had a decisive vote; everyone might see the song as unsuitable, but if he said to rehearse it, then so be it. He could also reject a song that the majority had accepted as unsuitable.
Once a song was accepted, the composer would sit with the singers and the rhythm guitarist to begin preliminary rehearsals for the song; we called it ‘kutafuta sura’, finding form. After ‘getting the form,’ the guitarists and drummer would be added to contribute their parts. The whole time, guitars were played without being connected to an amplifier. That stage came when the song would be considered as ‘mature.’ After that, the song would then begin to be rehearsed with the amplifier, and only then would the wind instruments and keyboard add their expertise.
Finally, when the band was satisfied with its song, the next step was to introduce it at live shows. Before playing a new song for the first time, the band leader would announce for example, ‘Our dear fans, today we bring you our new song composed by John Kitime, and it’s called Nyongise.’ And then the song would be played. The whole band would be playing and watching, the big question would be ‘Will people dance to it?’
Bands being called ‘dance music’ bands was not for nothing; a band’s reputation was based on people loving to dance to its songs. So during the introduction of a new song, if a song was played and people didn’t dance to it the first time, it would be repeated maybe twice, and if still no one danced, then perhaps that was the end of that song.
Bands often started rehearsals on Tuesdays. Before rehearsals, it was customary for the band to have a postmortem of the past week’s events. Good things were praised, bad things were criticized, and in that meeting, a new song would be discussed. If it wasn’t well received, the question would be why people didn’t dance to the new song? There, it would either be the end of the song, or perhaps ideas for revisions would be suggested. Hundreds of songs died in these meetings.
After a band had six or seven new songs, the band would hold a meeting to decide which ones to record. Then the lyrics of all the songs would be written down and sent to RTD, where a censorship committee would review those lyrics.
The committee could reject any song from being recorded or recommend changing certain words, and send feedback to the band, also giving a date for the band to enter the studio to record its songs.
It wasn’t rare for the committee’s decisions to cause disputes with the musicians. Let me give an example. When Mambo Bado was going to record its first songs, there was a song with the words, ‘Nakupenda kutoka uvungu wa moyo wangu’ (I love you from the bottom of my heart). The committee said the heart doesn’t have a bottom; we had a huge debate on that and won the debate.
There was this other song I composed about a girl I met when we went to play music at the Mwadui diamond mines. This girl had teeth as if she had just finished eating a dark chocolate, so I called her the girl with diamond teeth. My song had lyrics that said, ‘Nisubiri hapo Mwadui muda si mrefu nitafika, nije nikuchukue Binti Almasi, (Wait for me there at Mwadui, it won’t be long before I come, I’ll come and take you, diamond girl.) This song was never recorded because the commitee interpreted it as encouraging people to go steal diamonds at Mwadui!!
