The Tanzanian Tina Turner

Sitting as a teenager in my only jeans on the couch. Watching Top Pop at Friday evenings with my brother before going out. Sometimes we had to listen for weeks to terrible songs on nr 1. They sometimes just would not leave this position.  Every week for 51 weeks we rockers had to endure Marvin Gaye with his slimy, in our ears faky song “sexual healing”.
But one day there she was; wild, rough, cool, with crazy powerful sounds coming out of her mouth. A woman unpolished, Tina Turner singing Proud Mary. And proud she was!

Sitting as an adult woman in a simple student room at Mianzini in Arusha, I am listening 24 hours a day to the repetative nr 1 song in Tanzania 2012 called P squares Beautiful Oyinye. Our neighbour just did not stop, no matter how many times we bounched the wall in the middle of the night. Earplugs were useless and my African roommates slept through everything. I felt so alone.

And suddenly there she was; rough, passionate, convincing, and a powerful voice coming out of her  mouth.
A religious woman this Rose Muhando, but who cares with a swing like that. A Tanzanian Swahili Gospel Artist, a woman claiming to have had a vision of Jezus, while indisposed on her sick bed for three years at the age of nine, after which she was healed. She started her career in Dodoma’s Saint Mary’s choir for the Chimuli Anglican church. Not only singing like Tina but also looking like her and moving like her, allthough I think she will never have heard of Tina.

Rose sings at a typical Tanzanian monotonous Gospel rhythm one of her best known songs “Utamu wa Yesu. These gospel rhythms will find your ears when you visit Tanzania always, especially in busses. Quality of the video is not 100% as always. But enjoy!