| This dissertation examines the emergence of a popular music scene in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania during the post-socialist period (1985 to the present). Through documenting and analyzing segments of the country's music scene, including performance, radio stations, recording studios, album distribution, and copyright law, this study identifies the ways that musicians, producers, announcers, and others use music for social, economic, and political objectives. Each chapter sets out to comprehend a different aspect of popular music in Dar es Salaam, detailing and discussing, for instance, the ways that producers operate in private recording studios; the broadcasting techniques of announcers on independent radio stations; the emergence of piracy in the business practices of local music distributors; and the informal and formal means musicians learn, rehearse, and perform music. In looking at the contemporary music scene, I use interviews, surveys, and participant observation to address the agency of individuals and their experiences living in an urban, African environment. In particular, I highlight the shifts in the ways music is owned, performed, aired, recorded, sold, and heard from the socialist period to the present. I also use archival research, focusing on colonial and post-independence newspapers and magazines, to establish a history of popular music in Tanzania. This provides an historical framework from which to interpret and discuss the contemporary music scene. Central to this dissertation is an examination of the instability caused by the collision of socialist and capitalist practices within the contemporary music scene and the rise of ingenuity and self-reliance among individuals attempting to benefit from music during the country's liberalization. |
