From the Field: Musical Labor Performed in Northwest Tanzania [Live in Northwest Tanzania 1995]
The farmers of the Banunguli farming group from Kisessa village near Mwanza, Tanzania, build tie ridges—raised earthen mounds into which the cotton seeds are planted. In this video, the accompanying kadete (one-string fiddle) player regulates the pace of the workers and spurs them on with his sung words of encouragement.
Frank Gunderson endeavors to understand how the Sukuma people of Northwest Tanzania perceive and experience musical labor as neither exclusively music performance nor strict labor, neither work nor play, but a performed behavior retaining aspects of both. Read "Musical Labor Performed in Northwest Tanzania" for Smithsonian Folkways Magazine: https://folkways.si.edu/magazi....ne-summer-fall-2014-
Recorded in January 1995 by Frank Gunderson
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