Mchiriku

Mchiriku is a street music style from the poor neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, also known as jagwa or mnanda. It grew out of Zaramo ngoma drumming and chakacha dance music when cheap portable keyboards reached the city in the early 1970s, and its sound is built from a battered *Casio* keyboard amplified through megaphones, layered hand drums, struck tins and whistles. Performances are loud, fast and continuous, led by singers and dancers whose Swahili songs address unemployment, corruption, illness and infidelity. Long marginalised by Tanzanian media and authorities, the style is led internationally by *Jagwa Music*.