MOSHI DAY THREE

 About eight thirty in the morning my phone rang , it was Mr Mshana, he was calling to ask where I would want to be picked up by his motor cycle driver.  We agreed I would be near a local bank at 9:30. Sure enough at 9:30 to the dot the motorcycle was there and  we began the trip to Mshana's house.
After a twenty minutes ride from town, we arrived at Mshana’s home. He lived with his grandson, a very respectable young boy who invited me into their house and quickly offered me tea. While I was enjoying the cup of tea Mshana brought out his first surprise for me, it was a dusty box when he opened it, there was a beautiful Philips GF 907 turntable, it brought my memories back to the seventies when Philips company  had established an assembly line assembling Philips products in Arusha, the area where the company was, is still known as Philips by residents of  Arusha.  Philips products were very popular, we knew the Philips turntables by their numbers, GF 907, GF 932, GA 212. The company also assembled cassette players, radio cassette recorders and cassette tapes.

Philips GF 907

Philips 447

Radio cassette

Mr Mshana GF 907 was missing the stylus.  And Mshana brought more boxes, these were filled with vinyl records, from all over the world, I was more interested with the East African records and Tanzanian records in particular. There  were some very interesting labels. Here are some interesting labels;

The above labels was very interesting to me, the music and musicians were from Zanzibar, the more interesting part was the label, 'A.S.P.Y.L. (CULTURE)' ASPL stood for Afro Shirazi Party Youth League. Afro Shirazi Party was the ruling party in Zanzibar before the union with of the mainland ruling party TANU to form CCM, 

The record was published in 1976 a year before the merger with TANU. The information on the record shows it was manufactured in India by the Gramophone Company of India. Zanzibar and India have a long history in regards to pressing records, a history that started in the early years of the twentieth century, that included the era of the great Sitti Binti Sadi. The label opens many questions about the history of the music industry in Tanzania. 
 

Uhuru Stars label was owned by the Tanzania Film Company (TFC), a parastatal company that was expected to cater for music and film business in Tanzania.  After the breakup of the East African Community, TFC tried to establish its own record pressing company, the project never took off. The buildings meant for the project now house the Tanzania School of Journalism in Mikocheni Dar es Salaam.

Chance ya Moto by Maquis du Zaire

Another TFC label, there is a need to know why TFC had these different labels including the three other labels below

Vijana by Sunburst

Uzuri wa Tausi by Dingituka Molay, the same song was was recorded by Dingituka Molay with the Safari Sound Band of Dar es Salaam

Black Devil's Band was a Congolese band with an English name!

Mshana had hundreds of record, we went through each unfortunately we could not play any of them because of the stylus problem, am still looking for a stylus for the Philips GF 907, when I get one I will be back to spend quality time listening to these songs and also digitizing them.

Mshana then pulled out boxes full of audio cassettes, the expression of a child in candy store would have been appropriate if you could feel my excitement.  Just like the records, the cassettes too were of music from all aver the world, but I had to discipline my mind to deal with only east African records. Mr Mshana allowed me to take  some cassettes to digitize. I gave him some of the digitized music that I had
It was already dark when  I started my trip back to my lodging. It was a very satisfying day.