bi kidude

msanii mkongwe bi kidude anatuma salaam za eid mubaraka kwa wadau wote na wapenzi wa muziki wake. anasema iddi mosi na iddi pili atakuwa viwanja vya maisara huko zenji kuonesha sinema yake na kiingilio ni mguu wako. kwa habari zaidi soma hapo chini...

As Old as My Tongue – The Myth and Life of Bi Kidude (ScreenStation /Busara Promotions)

Dates: Eid 1 – Eid 3, 13th – 15th October, 8pm and 9.30pm daily
Venue: Maisara grounds (next to Mnazi Mmoja), Zanzibar
Admission: Free

A new film about Bi Kidude, one of the world’s most unusual and charismatic musical talents, screens in Zanzibar as part of the island’s Sikukuu Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations.

No-one knows Bi Kidude’s real age. These days she usually claims to be 113 years old, though the makers of As Old as my Tongue believe she’s no older than 97. She is, at any rate, almost certainly the world’s oldest living musical performer.
It’s difficult to separate the facts about Bi Kidude’s life from the myths, but there are certain things we can be fairly sure of. In the 1920s, she was a renowned child singer in Zanzibar, learning much of her repertoire from Siti bint Saad. Fleeing an unhappy marriage, she left the island to travel around East Africa with a band of itinerant musicians.

She returned to Zanzibar in the early 1930s, married again, divorced again, and then left for the mainland again. By the end of that decade, she was one of the more popular dance band singers in Dar es Salaam, playing regularly with the city’s Egyptian Club. She returned to Zanzibar at some point in the 1940s, and has lived there ever since. Today, she remains a full-time professional musician, regularly singing and playing drums in Zanzibar and at concert halls and music festivals worldwide.

As Old as my Tongue is narrated in great part by Bi Kidude herself. She’s a genuinely larger-than-life character, a tireless performer and a sharp-witted raconteur. The film follows her for four years, both in Zanzibar and on tour in Europe. She talks about life and music, while smoking, drinking beer and flirting with men young enough to be her great-grandchildren. She also lets us into the secretive world of unyago, the Swahili rites-of-passage ceremony for girls about to get married.

The music for which she is most famous internationally, however, is taarab. This style of music began in Zanzibar in the 19th century, when trading ships from the Persian Gulf had to spend three months a year docked at the island, waiting for the winds to change. Taarab thus developed as a blend of mainly East African and Arabian influences and instruments. Performed by a group of musicians or by a lone singer, taarab’s centrepiece is its powerful vocal melodies, sung in Kiswahili.

Bi Kidude claims she learned taarab as a street urchin, sitting beneath the windows of early 20th-century singers and memorising the songs. The music of taarab is in some ways a microcosm of Zanzibar itself. In the Indian Ocean just off the east coast of Africa, Zanzibar has long been a key point of intersection between African and Arabian cultures.
A defining moment in the film is Bi Kidude’s ‘resurrection’ scene. During 2004, midway through a three-month tour in Europe, news of her death sweeps Zanzibar.

Bi Kidude’s philosophical attitude to money is a recurring theme in the film. A striking scene is where, following a European tour, she finds herself relatively wealthy for the first time, and returns to Zanzibar with thousands of US dollars in cash. She moves back into her ramshackle house, and in the space of a fortnight gives away every penny of her money. People line up at her door asking for help: neighbours, adopted grandchildren, distant relatives, strangers struggling to pay medical bills or school fees. No-one leaves empty-handed, and in less than two weeks she has given everything away.

Of this part of the film, Andy Jones comments: ‘This is one thing in the film that I think makes a lot of people sad when they see it. On one hand, it is kind of sad, in that she should maybe have a little bit more to show for what she’s done. On the other hand, I think she draws a huge amount of strength from being able to care for the people around her.

And it doesn’t matter that those people maybe aren’t blood relatives, or that some of them may have spurious problems. She’s in a position to put her hand in her pocket and give people what they ask for, I think that’s a wonderful thing, and it’s a great sign of her humanity.

‘By Zanzibari standards she’s probably not that badly off, in that she’s got a house with electricity and running water, she’s got a bed to sleep in. But certainly not rich - if you were to look at other divas around the world, she’s on the bottom rung. I just worry about what will happen when she can’t sing. When she doesn’t get that money from singing, and hasn’t got the cash coming in, and maybe has to pay for hospital bills. When she’s got money, she’s surrounded by people, and when she doesn’t, there’s no-one.’

In February 2007, As Old as my Tongue had its official world premiere at the Sauti za Busara music festival in Zanzibar. Around 2,000 people came to see it in the open-air amphitheatre of Zanzibar’s Old Fort. Since then the film has been screened at festivals and cinemas all over the world, receiving rapturous critical acclaim in Europe, USA, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

For the next three days of Eid ul Fitr sikukuu celebrations, people in Zanzibar finally have another chance to see As Old As My Tongue. Starting 8.00pm and 9.30pm daily on the nights of Saturday 13th – Monday 15th October, the film is showing again on the big screen, in the open air grounds at Maisara (next to Mnazi Mmoja grounds, which remain flooded from recent heavy rains).

The free public screenings are organised by Busara Promotions, a non-profit cultural NGO registered in Zanzibar. Admission is free for all and everyone is welcome.

For more information email

busara@zanlink.com

or check out the following websites:
www.asoldasmytongue.net
www.busaramusic.com