Every day during school break, Ramadhani Idrisa Muhando and his friends would turn on their radio to listen to 20 Percent or Jose Chameleone, stars of bongo flava, a Tanzanian music genre influenced by hip-hop and R&B.
So his love of music, he says, “has its roots in that schoolyard” in Tanga, on Tanzania’s east coast, but it was singeli, a style developed 125 miles away in Dar es Salaam, that changed the course of his life.
“Boda boda [motorcycle] drivers played singeli on loudspeakers. Those new rhythms flooded our neighbourhoods and I couldn’t help but fall into its nets,” he says.
Muhando – known as K-Zungu – is a singeli artist, the first the country has known with albinism. “Zungu means ‘white’ in Swahili, and K is the first letter of my grandfather’s name, Kaniki. That’s why I chose that name,” he says.
Albinism, a hereditary condition that results in a lack of pigmentation in skin, hair and eyes, affecting one in 1,400 Tanzanians, is bound up in superstition. Some people believe myths that the body parts of people with the condition can bring wealth or cure illness, which has led to attacks and killings. UN statistics show 75 people with albinism were murdered in Tanzania between 2000 and 2016.
K-Zungu, 23, says he was lucky to have a protective family and experience the relative safety of a boarding school for children with albinism. “Going to school helped me gain confidence. I was afraid, yes, but I wasn’t one of those who suffered abuse because of albinism. I always felt supported by my family and friends,” he says.
At 13, his parents agreed he could leave school to follow “my lifelong dream of becoming a musician”. By then, K-Zungu was hooked on the frenetic, high-tempo singeli, developed in the 2000s by young women and male DJs on old computers and using cheap microphones.
K-Zungu, who is just finishing his first EP, is using his music to challenge the fears around albinism. “When I’m on stage singing, I address families, urging them to let their kids go out and interact. I’m the example, showing we are capable of anything. I’m their voice now, but I don’t want to be the only one.”
His song, Albino, describes someone returning home to find a gang of boys threatening to cut off his hands and sell them. “We deserve peace and happiness. I am proud of my colour, this is me,” he raps in the song, appealing to the government to take action against those “who brutally attack and kill us”.
In September, he was heard by Abbas Jazza, the managing director of Sisso Records and a founder of the talent agency Singeli Movement. “He is special; his strength and lyrics are devastating,” says Jazza. “We held an open call [for artists] in Tanga, and when my team and I heard him, we immediately knew: it was him.”
K-Zungu says: “On that day, my career took off.” The past few months he has been performing around Dar es Salaam and has started a six-month artist residency at Alliance Française, a cultural centre supported by the French embassy.
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His aim is to tour the world, gain recognition, and achieve success like singeli artists Rehema Tajiri, MCZO and Sisso, who have brought the genre to a global audience at festivals across Africa, Asia and Europe.
K-Zungu remains mindful of his mission. “I aim to nurture the community of artists with albinism. I want to establish groups to find new talent … to increase their confidence, demonstrating that, like me, they too can succeed,” he says. “I feel like an ambassador for the rights of people with albinism.”
He says people already see beyond his skin colour. “Today, people see an artist, not only a person with albinism.”
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K-Zungu will be appearing at the Singeli to the World concert at Coco Beach in Dar es Salaam on 21 June.