Bango (music)

Bango is a music style created and made popular on the East African coast by Joseph Ngala. It fuses traditional Portuguese music genres, Arabic influenced taarab music, jazz and music genres of local coastal Bantu languages. It resembles easy listening music styles of Latin America such as bossa nova and music styles of many Indian Ocean islands such as Seychelles and Mauritius. Ngala (also known by stage name "Mzee Ngala") is a renowned Kenyan bango musician who comes from Freretown, Mombasa, and also the founder of the genre. He performed in the past with famous groups such as the Hodi Boys and was also the founder and band leader of the 1960s and 1970s group Bahari Boys. In the band, he was the main composer and inspiration. Mzee Ngala's song "Bango" is the originator of the name bango. The resilience of the name, bango, is testament to the genre created by Ngala.

Other notable bango artists who have copied his style include Uyoga Band (formerly Them Mushrooms), Teusi 5 and Bango Sounds. Ngala still performs his music during events like the bi-annual Coast Night held in Nairobi and also in events all over the Coast province like Jamboree Club. Many, though not all, bango songs are written and performed for and during weddings. Such songs include "Jimmy na Anne" (written for Jimmy Ngala, Mzee Ngala's son's wedding to Anna), "Billy na Susan", "Kombe na Dogo" and the "David na Vera".

Bango music is a skillful fusion of Jazz, Rhumba and Mijikenda traditional music  that  includes Mwanzele (mostly performed during funerals), chakacha( performed in weddings and to teach young women how to care for their future husbands), and Brasso.The songs are a product of the long association and appropriation of the mentioned genres  along  the Kenyan coast between the early and mid twentieth century .Bango music is composed in Swahili though today we have Bango music composed in Mijikenda. The Mijikenda songs are carefully composed and can be understood and appreciated even by non-Mijikenda persons. Mzee Ngala confirms this in a 2017 interview with Mashirima Kapombe (KTN, Kenya Television Network) that Bango is indeed a fusion of jazz and rhumba infused with the skilled and professional blending of these genres with traditional Mijikenda music..

Bango plays a crucial role when it comes to wedding and marriage practices of the people along the Kenyan coast.. Bango artists have specialized in composing for wedding and betrothal ceremonies to celebrate the marrying couple .Bango songs are highly infused in many Kenyan coastal weddings. This has led to the formation of a saying in Rabai: “Harusi bila bango si harusi.” (A wedding without Bango is not a wedding). In many coastal cultures in Kenya, songs were composed in the honor of the suitors and  were performed with traditional dances during betrothal ceremonies and for the actual wedding ceremonies. Bango songs have wedding messages and are very instructive. They have marital advice from parents and elders from the community and blessings to bless the couple’s

In Masudi Chiguinia mohamed’s  study He  investigated the patterns of composition, systems of repetition and visual imagery in five of Mzee Joseph Katana Ngala’s bango songs: “Kadzo”, “Simba”, “Adam na Hawa”, “Vituko” and “Moyo Tulia”.

He took the first song recorded in every decade from 1970 to 2019 was picked from the available recorded songs to constitute his sample. The study found that the patterns of composition in Mzee Joseph Ngala’s Bango songs highlight the themes of love and gratitude through the use of formal verses and regular rhyme schemes. Repetition of words and phrases  in the songs adds variation, development and meaning to the themes of love and gratitude since these central ideas are accentuated. It also found that visual imagery is employed in the songs to help convey the themes of love and gratitude through similes and metaphors. In brief, patterns of composition, repetition and visual imagery are seen to be strong tools in Mzee Joseph Katana Ngala’s Bango songs that aid him to express the themes of love and gratitude. This study contributes to the understanding, enjoyment and appreciation of Bango songs.

The Origin of Bango

Bango originated from the spread of Christianity along the Kenyan coast. It sprouted in different mission stations like Rabai 1844, Ribe in 1862, Freretown in 1873, and Mazeras in 1893.Freetown is a town along the coastal mainland of Kenya east of Mombasa. In this town there was a mission station that helped in the resettlement of freed slaves from Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia '' (Morton, 2018). Hence the people in these stations were not from the Mijikenda Community.With time these mission stations would take in people fleeing hunger and civil unrest in Mombasa including the pioneers of  Bango music Like Joseph Katana Ngala”

Playing of the traditional African drums (ngoma) in these mission stations was prohibited as the Europeans believed that they were wicked drums. Hence the missionaries  formed the Freed Slave Force and provided it with military style uniforms, brass drums, and trumpets. With these instruments they were able to accompany church hymns and perfect their musical skills, exchanging them with their cultural rights). The modern brass band, called beni, performed only on religious and other public holidays. With time Beni became popular, becoming a major source of entertainment. However, Beni was replaced by dansi (dance). “Beni had more of a military band style unlike Dansi which was more sophisticated and classy. These two genres played a very crucial role in uniting these coastal centers, particularly through weddings, like how  Bango songs are doing presently. So we can say that Bango has followed in the footsteps of Dansi and Benii. In the early 1960s some Muslim Beni artists from Kaloleni and Mariakani (coastal towns in Kenya) came up and owned the genre and transformed it into Brasso. In the beginning, Brasso just like its predecessor, was performed for government functions and officials. Just like Beni it became popular and became an entertainment genre. Brasso bands would perform in festivals held in Mwembe Tayari (another coastal town in Kenya) every Saturday but with time started being invited to other places like the mission stations where Jazz and Rhumba tunes were played. Coastal genres at the time had a very strong religious inclination. The swahili embraced Beni while the Christians embraced Dansi which later incorporated jazz and rhumba tunes in it. With time, both Dansi and Brasso were overwhelmingly performed by local and ex-slave artistes. Even though both groups borrowed heavily from jazz and rhumba tunes,  they all entertained similar audiences. Mijikenda artists were able to transform Beni into Dansi to Brasso then finally to Bango by the 1980s. Five Brasso bands were formed in Ribe. These bands include the Mijikenda Band, Mtito Band, Batito Band, Utamaduni Band, and Utajiju Band. Since the bands were formed,  Kenyan coastal music enthusiasts no longer required Brasso bands from Mombasa, as the Ribe bands performed instrumental music, composed, sang, and even recorded their own songs. Not only did the Brasso bands perform in weddings but also other functions like parties and funerals hence having a diverse audience.

Bango got its name as a genre in 1987 when Ngala was invited to a night performance at his cousin’s wedding ceremony in Freretown. He and his band members, who included Joseph Kondo, performed until they exhausted the “golden rhumba oldies,” yet the audience kept cheering them on. Ngala decided to perform a “childish song” that he had composed and taught Kondo, entitled Naitaka Bango. To their pleasant surprise, the song was well received by the audience who would hum to the lyrics and then “loudly sing” the chorus: “Naitaka bango, bango, bango. Naitaka bango tena naitaka kamili” (I want my money and I want it in full) “until the very dark hours of the night”  The song describes someone who had loaned bango (one shilling) to a friend named Kazungu, whom he refers to as jomba (uncle). The Kenyan shilling was then referred to as bango in the 1980s. Actually the named man is called Kazungu and the debtor is demanding his full payment to prevent a scene from happening. In the song the persona is insisting to be paid that one shilling as he said he worked so hard to get it. He says that that one shilling is costly even though it seems it has little value.. He even says that he suffers insomnia at night just thinking about the money. Joseph Ngala was pleasantly surprised that his initial fear of Naitaka Bango being a “childish song” did not negatively impact its popularity among the audience at all. The production of the Bango Sounds album entitled Naitaka Bango in 1990 propelled Ngala’s group to instant recognition. From that humble beginning the song and its rhythm, which slightly differed from rhumba, became popular at weddings in Mombasa and its environs, especially Freretown, Rabai, Mazeras, Ribe, Kaloleni, and Mariakani. Bango fans began referring to Joseph Ngala as “Mzee Bango.”

Work Cited

Mohamed, Masudi Chigunia. “PATTERNS, REPETITION AND VISUAL IMAGERY IN BANGO SONGS: AN ANALYSIS OF SELECTED SONGS BY JOSEPH NGALA.” PATTERNS, REPETITION AND VISUAL IMAGERY IN BANGO SONGS: AN ANALYSIS OF SELECTED SONGS BY JOSEPH NGALA, PWANI UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, 01 06 2022, http://elibrary.pu.ac.ke/handle/123456789/1067.