ABSTRACT
Married women make up the majority of the audiences of all the categories of taarab performance on Zanzibar. After the women's clubs stopped performing taarab, kidumbak became popular as an economical and desirable choice. It seems possible that this kibiriti ngoma may also have fed into the mpasho phenomenon. In order to please the audience, kidumbak musicians played faster and more danceable rhythms, the sanduku was used to lead the dancing, and the mkwasa were beaten on the table during the michapuzo. The mpasho phenomenon began to permeate the male-dominated orchestral taarab as well, and even ardent 'idealists' such as Idi Farhan wrote mpasho-style poems. The stars of taarab at the time were all female singers from either Culture Musical Club or Ikhwani Safaa. Within the network of women's taarab clubs that emerged at that time, intense rivalry broke out between Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, who used taarab performances as displays of superiority.
