Imani Sanga

I am Imani Sanga, Professor of Music in the Department of Creative Arts at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  I hold a PhD (Music) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, an MA (Development Studies) and a BA (Music) from the University of Dar es Salaam. My areas of expertise include the music of Tanzania, church music, popular music, music mobility, aesthetics and philosophy of the arts, cultural theory and the use of music in Swahili literature. I served as Head of Department of Fine and Performing Arts (now Department of Creative Arts) at the University of Dar es Salaam (2012-2015) and later Deputy Principal of the College of Humanities (2015-2016). Currently, I coordinate postgraduate studies in the Department of Creative Arts overseeing the MA and PhD programs in Fine Arts, Music and Theatre Arts. I am an active member of International Musicological Society (IMS), serving as a member of its Board of Directors. I am also a member and Tanzania Liaison Officer of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD). My research work on Muziki wa Injili (Tanzanian Popular Church Music), Postcolonial Soundscapes, and the Sonification of Swahili Literature has been generously supported by the following fellowships: African Scholars Program (2007), African Humanities Program (2009), and National Humanities Center (2019-2020). And now I am delighted to be selected as the spring 2024 KASC African Virtual Affiliate Fellow through which I continue work on my book project on Travelling Sounds.

At the University of Dar es Salaam where I have worked since 2001, I have taught courses ranging from Fundamentals of Music, Composing for Film and Instrumental Instruction (Brass) to Aesthetics and Philosophy of the Arts and African Musicology. I also conduct and arrange music for the University of Dar es Salaam Choir and the University of Dar es Salaam Band.

The book project that I will be working on during the fellowship period entitled Travelling Sounds: Afro-Nativist Discourse, Nomadic Praxis and the Music of Tanzania focuses on both discourses and practices of music migrations in Tanzania. The first part of this book is a critical reading of musicological arguments concerning music migration in Africa and Tanzania in particular. It identifies various short-circuits and antinomies in the arguments for the inclusion and/or exclusion of various musical styles or traditions in what is considered to be African music on the basis of the music’s origins and general characteristics.  The readings also offer a critique of what I call sub-Saharocentrism in these strands of African musicology. By sub-Saharocentrism I refer to the widespread tendency of defining the music of Africa in terms of the music of sub-Saharan Africa and hence excluding the music of North Africa. In other words, the music of the Sub-Saharan Africa is often used a yardstick for establishing the degree of Africannes of various musical sounds in the continent. It follows that musical forms or traditions that either have their origins from elsewhere in the world or combine influences from other parts of the world are eschewed as “foreign” to Africa or as not fully “authentically” African. The texts analyzed in this section of the book include Kwabena J.H. Nketia’s The Music of Africa, Gerhard Kubik’s Theory of African Music (Volumes 1 and 2) as well as two book chapters namely “Africa: Ewe, Mande, Dagbamba, Shona, BaAka”  by David Locke and “The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa” by Thomas Turino. The other texts examined focus on East African music cultures, i.e. Stephen Mbunga’s Church Law and Bantu Music: Ecclesiastical Documents and Law on Sacred Music as Applied to Bantu Music and Arthur Morris Jones’s essay entitled “Musical Study of Swahili Epic Poetry” concerning a poetic tradition in East African coast called utenzi. The various chapters in this section contests the sub-Saharocentric perspective and advocates for a more pluralistic and a more inclusive idea of the music of Africa, one that is not founded on musical, cultural or racial homogeneity. It advocates for an idea of the music of Africa which recognizes the heterogeneity of origins of music and multiplicity of musical styles and the varied mobile experiences and the resulting musical transformations and hybridizations. It advocates for an idea of the music of Africa which recognizes the belonging of both the music of the music of sub-Saharan Africa and that of North Africa as well as African contemporary musical forms that are influenced by other music cultures around the world.

The second part of book discusses selected cases of musical mobilities and the resulting metamorphosis. Specifically, it focuses on selected travelling musicians, songs, musical instruments, and music genres. By analyzing ethnographic observations and interviews with musicians and by examining the music and written documents concerning these travelling musicians, songs, musical instruments and music genres the book discusses the travelling process and highlights the various transformations these musical entities undergo during and through the travelling process. It examines the resulting hybrid sound in their new locales in Tanzania. It also shows how ideologies, identities and social relations as well as politico-economic conditions of various places in the journey and in their points of arrival affect these traveling musical entities. A number of musical forms are examined in this book including church music, secular muziki wa dansi, coastal oriented taarab music, i.e. music that draws some influences from Arabic musical world, hip hop and bongo fleva, i.e. music that draws influences from the Americas and from other African countries such as Nigeria and South Africa as well as varius form of traditional dances or ngoma that is currently being staged by urban cultural troupes. With these cases, the book develops a critique of what I call the Afro-nativist discourse by showing that these music forms are not only products of migrations, hybridization and metamorphosis but also that they continue to travel, hybridize and change even today.

My research work over the years has been published in various journals in different academic areas such as musicology and ethnomusicology, popular music and cultural studies, African studies and literature. I have published encyclopedia entries concerning the music of Tanzania, book reviews and a song book comprising my arrangements of Tanzanian folk songs for church use.  Below I list journal articles that I have published so far. These articles can be accessed through the journals’ websites and at my academia webpage:https://udsm.academia.edu/ImaniSanga

1. Sanga, Imani. 2020a. Musical Figures of Enslavement and Resistance in Semzaba’s Kiswahili Play Tendehogo. African Studies 79(3): 323-338.
2. Sanga, Imani. 2020b. Musical Figuring of Dar es Salaam Urban Marginality in Mbogo‘s Swahili Novel Watoto wa Maman’tilie.  Journal of Literary Studies 36(2): 67-84
3. Sanga, Imani. 2019. Sonic Figures of Heroism and the 1891 Hehe-German War in Mulokozi’s Novel Ngome ya Mianzi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 55(5): 698-709.
4. Sanga, Imani. 2018a. The Antinomies of Transgressive Gender Acts in Professor Jay’s Rap Music Video “Zali la Mentali” in Tanzania. Journal of Literary Studies 34(1): 104—117.
5. Sanga, Imani. 2018b. Musical Figures and the Figuring of Tanzania’s Social Life in the Poems of Kulikoyela K. Kahigi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing54(2): 214—225
6. Sanga, Imani. 2017a. Musical Figures and the Archiving of African Identity in Selected Poems in Tanzania: Reading Mulokozi’s “Wimbo Uliosahaulika” and Kezilahabi’s “Ngoma ya Kimya”. Critical Arts 31(4): 53—68.
7. Sanga, Imani. 2017b. Antinomies of African Aesthetics and the Impulses of Aesthetic Relativism: Reading P‘Bitek, Abiodun and Agawu. African Identities 15 (3): 310—323.
8. Sanga, Imani. 2016. The Archiving of Siti Binti Saad and Her Engagement with the Music Industry in Shaaban Robert’s Wasifu wa Siti Binti Saad. Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies 2 (1-2): 34—44.
9. Sanga, Imani. 2015. Marimba and Musical Figuring of Desire and Postcolonial National Identity in Semzaba’s Novel Marimba ya Majaliwa. IRASM: International Review of the Aesthetics andSociology of Music 46 (2): 401—421.
10. Sanga, Imani. 2014. Postcolonial Archival Feverand the Musical Archiving of African Identity in Selected Paintings by Elias Jengo. Journal of African Cultural Studies 26(2): 140—154.
11. Sanga, Imani.2013a. The Figuring of Postcolonial Urban Segmentarity and Marginality in Bongo Fleva Music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. IRASM: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 44(2): 385—405.
12. Sanga, Imani. 2013b. The Limits and Ambivalences of Postcolonial Consciousness in Mbunga’s Church Law and Bantu Music. Yearbook of Traditional Music 45: 125—141.
13. Sanga, Imani. 2011a. Music and the Regulatory Regimes of Gender and Sexuality in Tanzania. Journal of Popular Music and Society 34(5): 351—368.
14. Sanga, Imani. 2011b. Mzungu Kichaa and the Figuring of Identity in Bongo Fleva Music in Tanzania. IRASM: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 42 (1): 189—208.
15. Sanga, Imani. 2010a. Postcolonial Cosmopolitan Music in Dar es Salaam: Dr. Remmy Ongala and the Traveling Sounds. African Studies Review 53(3): 61—76.     
16. Sanga, Imani. 2010b. The Practice and Politics of Hybrid Soundscapes in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Journal of African Cultural Studies 22(2): 145—156.
17. Sanga, Imani. 2009. Teaching-learning Processes in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam. African Music8(3): 132—143.
18. Sanga, Imani. 2008. Music and Nationalism in Tanzania: Dynamics of National Space in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam. Ethnomusicology 52(1): 52—84.
19. Sanga, Imani. 2007. Gender in Church Music: Dynamics of Gendered Space in Muziki wa Injili in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Journal of Popular Music Studies 19(1): 59—91.
20. Sanga, Imani. 2006a. Composition Processes in Popular Church Music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Ethnomusicology Forum 15(2): 247—271.
21. Sanga, Imani. 2006b. Kumpolo: Aesthetic Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation of Bird Sounds in Tanzania. Folklore 117(1): 97—102.

My research experiences include conducting ethnographic research among church musicians and secular popular musicians in Dar es Salaam. I have also done extensive research on the use of musical figures in Swahili literature. In addition, I have experience in composing, arranging music for orchestra, band and choir as well as conducting the University of Dar es Salaam choir and band.

I also have experience in teaching at the university level since 2001 when I was first employed as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts (now Department of Creative Arts) at the University of Dar es Salaam. Other experiences include supervising postgraduate students, coordinating postgraduate programs in the department, serving as external examiner for universities in Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Malawi, giving invited guest lectures at the Universities in USA, Colombia and Germany as well as giving keynote speeches and paper presentations at international conferences. Samples of a keynote lecture and performance of my song arrangements can be accessed through the following links:

1.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khlkq6ShYlg

A Keynote lecture delivered at the 6th Mashariki Literary and Cultural Conference 2023 held at Makerere University and organized by the Department of Literature. The title of the lecture is “Sonification of Decolonial Acts in Selected Swahili Novels by Adam Shafi: Vuta N’Kuvute and Kasri ya Mwinyi Fuad”.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvCsaFv4U-0

Performance of my orchestral arrangement of Tanzania’s national anthem “Mungu Ibariki Africa”. The song was composed y Enock Sontonga. It was performed by Dar  Choral Society and Orchestra  and conducted by Hekima Raymond.