By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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Close your eyes and picture this. It is 1990-something, Tanzania is veering off the Ujamaa path into uncharted territory, Structural Adjustment has brought austerity to politics, economics and the media.

You are part of the first post-Independence generation, a fan of popular music. You know there is a big old world out there but somehow you don’t seem to show up in it. You switch on the radio to pass the day.

There is only Radio Tanzania: “Ndigidigi-ndindi, ndigidi-ndindi, tee-tee-tee-tee: Hii ni Radio Tanzania, taarifa ya habari.” Cue local news (nothing much happened in the 1990s, this is public broadcast after all), international news (meh), sports (Simba, Yanga, whatever), entertainment (just kidding! Tanzanians in the 1990s were not entertained!). Then perhaps some topical programme on lizards or the mechanics of growing maize and finally, at some point, music.

Nothing but “zilizopendwa” for days: Old men crooning about how their girlfriends shouldn’t be jealous because they have boyfriends too, or that guy who said educated women can’t get married (misogyny much?), or classic taarabu which nobody but Swahili people and hardcore fans understand.

The youth: Did not exist, as evidenced by the culture of the time. We were physically present, and in great numbers too, but firmly relegated to facelessness along with the other invisibles: Women.

Somehow a few nightclubs went speakeasy and became venues for an urban minority to talk and think about our future. Sometime then I started hearing about some dudes trying to put together a… radio station? I think it started out as Mawingu, a club in Arusha? Somehow it migrated to Dar. Then eventually, this thing called Clouds FM emerged on the air.

By this time there was already alternatives to public broadcast: A local industrialist had ventured into television and radio in a staid and orderly manner.

But Clouds and its peripheral companies were a different beast. The driving force behind it was focused: Music for the youth. Music from around the world. Music that was relevant, plugging us into the African and global cultural scene long before the internet became widely available. A station that employed strictly youth, trained youth talent and was concerned with youth and contemporary issues.

And ultimately, a station and a whole structure behind and around it that took the crucial step: Producing, promoting, broadcasting Tanzanian youth music.

Just like that, we youth went from being nobodies to a real demographic with a voice and power. And all this because one young man decided to dedicate his entire life-force to what he loved and to do it in the country he loved. That’s why nowadays anything youth is possible; we’re even growing a movie industry.

So it was with great sadness that Tanzania and the African entertainment industry heard of the passing of Ruge Mutahaba after a valiant struggle with illness. Not many people get to live a life in which they are able to build a platform from which all the people around them can also step up and succeed.

It’s not just the entertainment industry that owes you infinite gratitude for what you achieved in your lifetime, Ruge. It’s all of us. You put Tanzania on the map, bro. Rest in power.

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]