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Various artists: Asili ya Mama review – Tanzanian field recordings tell women’s stories with an energetic trill

Friday, April 17, 2026 at 7:30 AM · By Jude Rogers

(Hukwe Zawose Foundation) These stories of family bonds capture traditional music that’s equal parts rhythmic, melodic and harmonic, and rarely heard outside Indigenous communities Folk song collecting by women has an illustrious history, but also an exciting present, as this set of 10 energetic Tanzanian field recordings demonstrates. Put together by documentarian Ruth Ndeto and musician Msafiri Zawose (brother of Pendo from the brilliant Zawose Queens, and son of the late folk pioneer Hukwe),…