MUSIC: Someone Call 911 For Yemi Alade in TZ, Pronto!

Play Krizbeatz’s 911 {Video}

As the video shows, the whole crew caught up in this 911 situation has contributed massively to its obvious and growing success. Everybody in it goes with the tastefully choreographed flow, and understated humor.

Still, special mention must go to three individuals: Krizbeatz, Harmonize and Yemi Alade. One takes it that Krizbeatz it is who made the do at all possible. Never a mean feat. And so he must feel fully validated by the accolades that are flowing in. Yemi Alade is the most widely known of the three, and the heart of this 'party'. But in East Africa, Harmonize packs quite a punch. And it shows in his smooth 'responder' moves, and his super-confident mien all through. He is a superstar!

Back to Yemi Alade: It is so fortunate for everyone that she agreed to be a part of 911, and that the story line put her at its very center. She plays her role perfectly, as a lady hotly pursued -- by an unseen hunk. 

The only telltale signs of him are her incessant craving for Panadol or Cetamol -- "Panadoo, Cetamoo." [At first the latter sounded more like like shikamoo (actually, sikamoo) -- a word which never fails to prompt squalls of hopeless laughter in certain circles around here]. Either she gets the hunk, or its 911 -- all the way to America, presumably. It would be easier on everyone if the hunk just surrendered.

Thanks to Krizbeatz, the 911 beat continues unabated. It'll get hotter and hotter still.

Tanzania's Dully Sykes and Harmonize Impress in Inde

The song Inde, given to us by two young singers, Dully Sykes and Harmonize, epitomizes as much as anything else the emergence (the arrival) onto the continental stage of a swagging, super self-confident peer-group of Tanzanian millennials eager to shake things up more than a little bit, musically, and thus claim a place on the mountain-top. Indeed, they are eager to explore modes of expression quite discrepant with, and quite unexpected in, Dar-Es-Salaam's cautious cultural infrastructure, which, ironically, has produced them just as they are artistically, and seems willing to let them be. 

Together with a good number of other music videos, Inde symbolizes a brave new world for Tanzanian artistes -- who play second fiddle to no one. They are a veritable energy source: Swahili, the language in which they sing, is predominantly theirs (and as 'pure' as you want it delivered). The genre, Bongo Flava, is theirs. The threads? The sky's the limit to how they can put them all together. Fine threads, then, and fine tunes reveal both good taste and conscious grooming. 

Their fan-base, which devours all this, is large and devoted and getting larger, and always has been. It gives them strength and drive. And, whatever the explanation, they seem more successful in their talent-related entrepreneurial pursuits than their Kenyan and South African counterparts. Indeed, more so than their own country seems to be still in the eyes of many observers, given its lingering socialistic past.  

Overall, then, Inde is a winning song. The set is neat. The singers' and dancers' stage-presence is truly attractive. I see fine, attention-grabbing moves that really add flavor to the whole thing. This almost masks a consistently jarring noise in the background -- emanating, it might seem, from a tone-deaf source. But it's almost certain that this vexation is computer-generated percussion gone awry. One does frequently encounter this tendency to generate instrumental sounds in that way among musicians looking to cut stifling production costs. All that said, Inde definitely deserves a place among Africa's Top 40 Pop Songs of 2016.

READ: Inde Lyrics