ABSTRACT
This book has set out the prominent history of taarab, describing the cultural and musical environment into which the music was consolidated in the late nineteenth century and developed into a vibrant element of Swahili popular culture during the twentieth century. In so doing, it posits that taarab music exists in Zanzibar in a number of expressions, each with their own, though fluid and linked, origins, modus operandi and trajectories. These are presented as a series of entangled histories and parallel strands – a music complex.
