Bi Kidude Biography
Bi Kidude whose real name is Fatuma binti Baraka was born in the 1910’s in Zanzibar City, Tanzania. She is a Taarab singer who has been called the “queen of Taarab and Unyago music”.
Bi Kidude Early Life
She grew up in the village of Mfagimaringo, where her father was a coconut seller.
Bi Kidude Career
Bi Kidude was one of the first Zanzibari women to lift the veil and sing in public. This was a courageous move in a society where women were confined to purdah.
Together with Siti Binti Said they sang together and their original music was dumbak, based on a drum rhythm and performed in small groups. This was blended with an early form of taarab, an Arab/Swahili fusion.
In 1928 started a marathon tour of east Africa. She travelled to the mainland by dhow and moved around occasionally by train, but mostly on foot. Her repertoire was based on Saad’s songs, adapted and embellished to fit her own purposes.
Following this journey of personal liberation, Bi Kidude returned home. She married but was unable to conceive and was divorced by two husbands. Then she moved into a small clay house in the Shangani quarter of Zanzibar town. She went to small taarab social clubs, usually run by women and, most importantly, became involved in unyago, the initiation procedure for Swahili women.
Her singing career lay dormant for almost 50 years, but in the 1980s there was a revival of interest in her music when she performed with the Sahib El-Ahri band. Later, she joined the
Zanzibar-based group the Twinkling Stars and toured Germany, Scandinavia, Japan and the Gulf.
In the early 1990s she was recruited as an occasional member of Shikamoo Jazz, a band of elderly musicians from Dar es Salaam who were sponsored by the British organisation HelpAge International. This collaboration created a unique development of pop/taarab which saw mixed couples dancing socially to what had been a formal and constrained music. A tour of Britain in 1995 took in the Womad festival at Reading, where Bi Kidude was a major attraction. Her deep, wailing voice expressed the raw emotion of a lifetime’s experience.
Bi Kidude Songs
- Bomwanzani Wa Mahaba
- Machozi Ya Huba
- Unyago
- Muhogo Wa Jang’ombe
- Arebaba Pakistan
- Beru
- Kijiti
- Alaminadura
- Jua toka
- Suhuba ya dai
- Ya laiti
- Msondo
- Khaifu
- Bero
- Chosi La Huba
Bi Kidude Honors and Awards
- 2012: Medal for Arts and Sports.
- 2005; WOMEX A ward ( for her contribution to music and culture in Zanzibar)
Bi Kidude Death
She died on 17th April 2013 in Zanzibar.
Photo
Bi Kidude