Hukwe Zawose
Hukwe Ubi Zawose (* 1940 in Bugiri in the British Mandate Tanganyika , today Tanzania , † December 30, 2003 ) was an African musician .
Zawose had four wives and 15 children. He belonged to the Wagogo people from the Dodoma region and was born into a family of artists in which the traditional music of the Wagogo had been inherited for generations. His father Ubi Zawose, who is still living in Bagamoyo for over 100 years , is a true master instrumentalist and a famous traditional healer.
As a child, Hukwe Zawose looked after the family's cows, and like all the other Wagogo, Hukwe sang while working in the fields. His voice differed from the others in the fields early on, it was a loud, deeply passionate shout with an immense range.
Hukwe Zawose was soon wandering from village to village with his singing, playing the ilimba (a lamellophone ), the spit lute zeze and the longitudinal flute filimbi , together with ankle bells ( nguga ). He increasingly composed and wrote his own compositions for the storytelling songs of his culture.
When the Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere called Zawose to the capital Dar es Salaam and later to Bagamoyo to the College of Arts there, his fame quickly spread across the country and beyond.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Zawose toured the whole country with his band and their elaborate masks and costumes. In 1996 the first album Chibite (Real World) was released in the USA, a mixture of Zawose's own songs and traditional compositions.
The well-known British musician Peter Gabriel described Zawose in interviews as "one of the most important traditional artists in the world" and published numerous solo and sampler CDs with pieces by Zawose on his Real World label .
With the national ensemble of Tanzania, the Bagamoyo Players , Zawose has performed in Japan , Australia , the People's Republic of China , the USA , England , France , Norway , Sweden , Finland , Denmark , Austria , Spain and Germany . Between 1996 and 2000 he participated in different countries, seven of the great WOMAD - World Music festivals in part.
As a "Master Musician", Zawose taught ilimba and zeze students for many years, and in the last years of his life he also appeared as a healer of mental illnesses. At the same time he was involved in the fight against AIDS and worked together with musicians like Papa Wemba and Youssou N'Dour on a large African AIDS music project for the benefit of the Freddie Mercury Foundation.
In 1998 , the charismatic musician was awarded the first honorary doctorate for his life's work by the Sibelius Academy of Music , and in 2002 he received the Zeze Award , Tanzania's highest cultural award.
Zawose died on December 30, 2003 after a serious illness.
Web links
- Sound carrier by Hukwe Zawose in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zawose, Hukwe |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Zawose, Hukwe Ubi (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Tanzanian traditional African musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1940 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bugiri, Tanganyika colony (now Tanzania) |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 30, 2003 |