Straight from Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), here's Jagwa Music: a crew of 8 youngsters playing intricate grooves at breakneck speed on traditional & makeshift percussion, a keyboard player going wild on a battered vintage Casio, and three relentless front persons: two breathtaking, spectacular dancers & a charismatic lead vocalist/MC, belting out songs about survival in the urban maze, unfaithful lovers & voodoo.

Watch them HERE

Known as Mchiriku, their music derives from popular dance styles, which underwent a mutation when the band adopted low-cost electronic keyboards and their gritty, distorsion-laden sound. Jagwa Music are not only immensely popular in the poor suburbs of their hometown: their electrifying appearances at European festivals such as Roskilde have created a sensation. Some call this "Afro-punk", because of the DIY attitude and the creative use of noise. Some refer to minimal or trance music, to the sexual energy of kuduro & mapouka... Let's simply welcome the advent of one of the most exciting bands around

Strange as it may seem when you're looking at the current band members' youthful looks, (the line-up of musicians has gradually renewed itself over the years...) JAGWA MUSIC was founded around twenty years ago. They are the leading exponent of the Mchiriku style of playing which developed in the poor suburbs of Dar es Salaam, when cheap Casio keyboards became available and drew the attention of bands playing Chakacha dance music. What happened next is reminiscent of other, by now familiar stories (like that of Konono No.1): Jagwa Music & their peers were immediately attracted by the Casio's lo-fi sound, adopted it, rechristened it kinanda ("a box that plays music"), and hooked it to vintage amps & megaphones. This new gritty, edgy, distortion-laden sound became known as Mchiriku. Although it's been deliberately ignored by the Tanzanian media, as it is associated with uhuni (thuggery) & the city's low lif.......
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