Making the Modern: Contestations over Muziki wa Dansi in Tanganyika, ca. 1945–1961

Abstract

This article focuses on muziki wa dansi (dance music, i.e., ‘urban jazz’ and ballroom dancing), a genre that became extraordinarily popular in post-1945 Tanganyika, primarily in towns. While musicians and aficionados, mainly ‘young’ townspeople, embraced this music and related dances as a means for shaping cosmopolitan and ‘modern’ identities, most African ‘elders’ condemned ballroom dancing and dancers' conduct. By drawing on oral sources, combined with the Swahili press, this article seeks to grasp conflicting views of modernity made visible through the study of muziki wa dansi.