30 days of Tanzanian hip hop: Day 21 – Zavara aka Rhymson. In 2010 wearing a Watengwa t-shirt. I’ve known Zavara since 1996 and I have not met many emcees that were that dedicated to developing hip hop culture in Tanzania. Since day one Zavara has been all hip hop, all the time. For Zavara there is no room for pop music in hip hop and no room for non-conscious lyrics in hip hop, and he doesn’t care who he pisses off with his views. Zavara helped introduce me to TZ hip hop years ago, and through him I got to kick it with KBC, D Rob, Y Thang, Sugu, Dola and others who were the pioneers of TZ hip hop. Later he wanted to make sure that whatever I wrote got the history of TZ hip hop correct. So now, when I write, I’ve got artists like Zavara, KBC, and others in mind, because I want to correctly represent their histories.
*30 days of TZ hip hop is to show some of what I experienced the past year in Tanzania.
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