Not so long ago, Christopher John's days were spent herding his family's goats and cows in a rural part of Zanzibar, the tropical island off the coast of Tanzania. But he always loved music and used to make whistles out of papaya leaves to play while he tended to his herds. I have to learn it," he recalls of the dreams he had when he was 12 or 13, even though his education had stopped after he completed eight years of school.
John no longer tends to livestock full-time. At 20, he plays flute in weekly concerts at the Dhow Countries Music Academy, where he began studying in He's part of a revival of taarab , a traditional form of music that dates to the s.
At the time, the island was governed by the sultan of Oman, who brought a taarab ensemble from the Middle East to play in his palace in Zanzibar. Eventually, the music took on African and Indian influences as well, reflecting the island's history as a crossroads of trade. The different musical sounds came in on the dhows, traditional wooden boats, that carried ivory, spices and slaves across the Indian Ocean.
Taarab ensembles often feature accordion, violin or the qanun , a type of zither, giving the lively music a Middle Eastern sound. They also include tabla drums and can feature double bass and cello and other instruments.
The music took on a Zanzibari flavor when lyrics from Swahili poetry were eventually added. In the s, Siti binti Saad , a renowned Zanzibari taarab singer and daughter of slaves, became the first East African woman to record the music when she sang taarab songs for Columbia Records in Mumbai, India.
