Every February, thousands of musical lovers from all over the world beat a path to Stone Town Zanzibar for the Sauti za Busara festival, East Africa’s biggest musical extravaganza.

Translated from Kiswahili, Sauti za Busara means sound of wisdom.

For the past 10 years, the festival has brought together artistes and audiences from around Africa and beyond with enriching cultural experiences, promoting cultural diversity and social development.

It is widely referred to as “the friendliest festival on the planet.” This year’s edition featured about 400 invited performers, more than 25 groups from East Africa and beyond, acoustic and electric, upcoming and established — all performing live.

Festival Director Yusuf Mahmoud said that the event united people through music in spite of their different cultures, political and religious backgrounds.

He said music is the perfect way to build peace on an individual level rather than in the political arena.

“This year’s event will help to promote Sauti za Busara using film whereby the message of African unity and solidarity will come across loud and clear,” he said.

The festival screened three feature-length films about African music: Omar Sosa’s Souvenirs from Africa,Benda Bilili! and United States of Africa.

Rebecca Corey, the managing director of Sauti za Busara, said the films provided the audience with a different way to appreciate the richness and diversity of African music, and the strength for positive social change that is inherent in music.

“The three feature documentary films we selected this year are about very different types of music — jazz, Congolese rumba and hip hop,” she said.

This year, the festival had a special focus on freedom of expression. Under the title “Speaking the truth to power,” musicians and artistes had a “Movers & Shakers” panel discussion touching on censorship issues, the challenges musicians face when they speak up against the powers in their countries, and the importance of protecting artistic freedom of expression.

The festival organisers invited artists who are or have been subject to censorship and condemnation in other African countries.

One of them was the Malian singer Khaïra Arby, the “undisputed queen of Malian desert soul”, who performed on Sunday. She was born in a village not far from the famed city of Timbuktu. When Islamic militants banned all music in northern Mali, they threatened her that they would cut out her tongue if she continued her “desert laments.”

Khaïra Arby was no longer able to perform her music in her home region, in spite of the fact that in several of her songs she praises the Prophet Mohammed.

Zimbabwean rapper and poet Comrade Fatso, who is excluded from the national radio and television in Zimbabwe, because his music criticises Mugabe’s government, also performed on Sunday.

Corey said providing a space for censored artists to have a voice was vital. “Music is one of the most powerful tools we have to speak out against injustice, to celebrate life, and to express the triumphs of the human spirit. Freedom of expression is a human right — and it benefits us all when it is observed and respected,” she said.

According to Sauti za Busara organisers, it is their responsibility to provide a platform for artistes like these who bringing important messages that reach far deeper than political rhetoric.

The director Mahmoud said the festival has evolved. The first year was primarily Tanzanian music with local audiences, then within a few years it became a more East African event in terms of performers and the audience.

Since 2004, the number of visitors to Zanzibar in February has increased by more than 500 per cent resulting in economic growth in the region.

“And you can see that very clearly because all the hotels are full, the flights, the ferries from Dar, the taxis, the people selling crafts,” Mahmoud said.

The festival has promoted upcoming as well as established groups, traditional and acoustic as well as electric and urban styles. At the festival, artistes brought several CDs, but they all sold out.

It has created respect for local artistes and appreciation for the cultural diversity on the African continent. Not many Tanzanians were familiar with mbalax or kora from West Africa or other kinds of music styles, except for European or American hip hop, Mahmoud said.

Artistes from Senegal, Tanzania, Mali, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Reunion, Comoros, Kenya, Rwanda, Burkina Faso and other countries performed.

Additional information from www.freemuse.org