Mohamed Issa Haji 'Matona'

Mohamed Issa Matona in performance at the Institut du monde arabe (Paris), 2016.

Mohamed Issa Haji 'Matona (born 1969) is a Zanzibarian musician. He is a founder and the artistic director of Zanzibar's Dhow Countries Music Academy.^[1]

Earlier life

Mohamed is the son of the renowned Tanzanian musician Issa Matona (a composer, singer, and violinist in the taarab genre).^[2]

Career

Issa Matona played in the orchestra JKT Taarab, based in Dar es Salaam.^[3] Mohamed was born in Zanzibar and educated in mainland Tanzania.^[4] As a child, Mohamed Issa Matona learned to play violin by watching his father, and percussion by playing on disused milk cans. In 1987, at the age of 18, he joined his father's band. He went on to play with Twinkling Stars (led by Mohammed Ilyas). In 1995, he started his own taarab band, G-Clef.^[5] In 2001, in association with Joseph Castico, Zanzibar's one-time director of the ministry of Information, Culture and Sports, Mohamed founded the Dhow Countries Music Academy,^[6] working initially as treasurer before becoming director.^[4] In 2010 Mohamed took a diploma in music at the DCMA with a thesis on 'The Development of Taarab Music in Zanzibar'.^[7]

Discography

This discography is incomplete.

• Msumeno. Dar es Salaam. (no date)
• The Norwegian Radio Orchestra with Maryam Said Hamdun, Mohammed Issa Matona Haji & Rajab Suleiman, Symphonic Taraab (Jaro 2014)
• Matona's Afdhal Group (OK World, 2018)

References

1. Wolfgang Schneider, 'Transformationsprozesse als Gegenstand von Kulturpolitikforschung: Beobachtungen in Afrika', in Kulturarbeit in Transformationsprozessen: Innenansichten zur 'Außenpolitik' des Goethe-Instituts, ed. by Wolfgang Schneider and Anna Kaitinnis (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016), pp. 39-52 (p. 45) ISBN 9783658132583 doi:10.1007/9783658132590.
2. Issa Matona's discography is listed by Kelly M. Askew, Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 383, as:
   • Uliyenae Umzuie [restrain your lover] (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Film Company, TFCLP 004)
   • Bwana Anakula Solo [husband is eating the wedding feast] (Dar es Salaam, no date)
   • Issa Matona (Dar es Salaam: Chamudata; 104)
   • Kugombea Usichokiweza (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Film Company, 1985; TFC 002)
   • Kimasomaso (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Film Company, 1985; TFCLP 003)
   • Kimasomaso, Volume 2: Hekima za Ndoa na Maisha (Dar es Salaam)
   • with Mridu, Sambusa (Dar es Salaam: 1999)
3. World Music: The Rough Guide. Volume 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East (London: Rough Guides, 1999), 697.
4. Setumo-Thebe Mohlomi, 'Music: Variety is the Spice of Music', Financial Mail (South Africa) (6 April 2017).
5. Janet Topp Fargion, Taarab Music in Zanzibar in the Twentieth Century: A Story of ‘Old is Gold' and Flring Spirits, SOAS Musicology Series (Routledge, 2016) ISBN 9781138247246.
6. Edward Qorro, 'Keeping Culture Alive through Performance Arts', The Citizen (Tanzania) (7 February 2014).
7. Wolfgang Schneider, 'Transformationsprozesse als Gegenstand von Kulturpolitikforschung: Beobachtungen in Afrika', in Kulturarbeit in Transformationsprozessen: Innenansichten zur 'Außenpolitik' des Goethe-Instituts, ed. by Wolfgang Schneider and Anna Kaitinnis (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016), pp. 39-52 (p. 45) ISBN 9783658132583 doi:10.1007/9783658132590.