At the studio, she ran into Zamba, a legend on the burgeoning Ugandan hip hop scene who had racked up numerous awards, producing gigs, and brand sponsorships. The two connected, and when Zamba was looking for a singer for a government-supported track to raise HIV awareness, he called on Tamar. The song is credited with making a significant impact, Zamba notes. They went on to more collaborations, as part of Zamba’s hip hop label.
“I was singing more pop and hip hop,” Tamar recalls. “I didn’t really have a strong idea about my voice or message at that point, but I knew I wanted to be singing and writing. I was experimenting and figuring out what I needed to do that felt closer to my own vision.” Then, after five years in Uganda, events drew Tamar back to the States. In the year she spent alone in the US, she found her voice, writing and recording a solo EP, Firedance. The EP debuted in the top five of the iTunes world chart, garnering strong reviews and significant YouTube views.
When Zamba came and joined her in America, he began to explore new ideas. Though he had collaborated with traditional and acoustic musicians in Uganda, his focus and his claim to fame were his accomplishments as a hip hop MC. Known as a “ghetto storyteller” for his frank portrayals of life in Kampala, “I grew up listening to American MCs like Nas and to rappers from South Africa and elsewhere. I had fun as a young man just doing hip hop, but it wasn’t my only center. I was all over the place; I would preach on the record but it never felt whole.” Zamba, too, began to search for a different way to raise his voice.
They hit upon Swahili proverbs as conceptual anchors, bringing their broad musical loves and diverse experiences together. “There is so much in these proverbs, some of which I first encountered when I studied Swahili in college and in Tanzania,” Tamar notes. “We’d talk about them, and then Zamba would find similar ideas in Baganda culture.” “Leo ni Leo,” for example, reminds listeners that all we have is today, but today is more than enough to find joy. “Dunia ni Matembezi” advises listeners to leave their familiar surroundings and discover the world, literally stating that “the world is walking,” getting out there, seeing new things.
The evocative proverbs were just the beginning. “After we’d thought about the proverb, we’d come up with stories that we could tie together from our two perspectives and experiences, and I’d develop the melody,” recalls Tamar. “We ended up singing in English, Luganda, Lingala, and Swahili.” The linguistic range was enhanced by the duo’s collaborators, US-based Ugandan multi-instrumentalist Kinobe and Congolese-born soukous guitarist and singer Jaja Bashengezi, whose musical imprint on tracks like the party-read “Sokota” proved crucial to the album.
Nsimbi has diverse origins but the tracks share a sonic integrity, a sunny acoustic sound and a mesmerizing rhythmic intensity. Within the overarching feel, the contributors’ various styles glimmer through: Tamar’s singer-songwriter instincts (“Gonna Be Alright”), Zamba’s hip hop roots (“Flower of the Heart”), Bashengezi’s red-hot soukous licks, and Kinobe’s expressive kora (“Forsaken,” which addresses the plight of refugees in East Africa and worldwide). Zamba and Tamar’s musical impulses sometimes lead to different understandings of a shared concept, as in “Omugga,” dedicated to the swaying current of a river. Tamar heard the pulse in one way, Zamba another. “You can watch us dancing to these different beats on stage,” laughs Tamar. “But it all came together, even though our sense of a river’s rhythm were so different.”
Dunia ni Matembezi
Leo Ni Leo
Mujje
Omugga
Forsaken
Koona
Acholi Boy
Gonna Be Alright
Flower Of The Heart
Kulusozi
Moonglow
Sokota Ft Jaja Bashengezi
Amaka
