SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This paper explores the hybrid nature of hip hop from Tanzania and Zanzibar on the East African Coast. First, it discusses the music known as taarab to explain the long-standing tradition of hybrid genres in this region. Then it explores how, since the 1990s, hip hop has followed a similar path of cultural assimilation to taarab, and how contemporary hip hop artists draw from both local and global influences. It also considers what hip hop means for the people of the Swahili coast and how the internet has advanced the circulation of music from this region.