2008
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In April 2008 the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Minister of the Environment Erik Solheim came on an official visit to Tanzania. With the success of the concert organised during the visit to Tanzania of the Crown Prince of Norway in mind, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Tanzania asked Nedland Kultur to create another collaboration between Tanzanian and Norwegian performers, to stage a concert during the official visit of the Ministers. The concert took place in the garden of the Norwegian Ambassador Residence in Dar Es Salaam, with an audience of invited guests, as well as the Norwegian ministers.
The year before the Ministers’ visit to Tanzania, Nedland Kultur had started a CD production combining the talents of the rapper Witness from Dar Es Salaam and a Norwegian rap group called Darkside of the Force. Both Witness and Salvador, the main rapper from the Norwegian group, were willing to follow up recordings with a concert, and together with Morten Martens (electronics and bass guitar), Esrom Rudala (traditional drums, vocals and guitar) and the singers Aziza Abdul Salum and Rukia Juma Nyauru, they started preparing a concert program.
Witness, Salvador and the band playing for the ministers and an invited audience in Dar Es Salaam.
On the 24th of April 2008 the concert programme was well rehearsed and ready to be performed on stage. The stage was set up in the garden of the Norwegian Ambassador’s Residence in Dar Es Salaam, and before the concert started, the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was giving a short speech to the invited guests. Then Witness, Salvador and the band went on stage and did a spirited performance.
The program consisted of songs from the CD “Khaya Khaya”, an album of rap/hip hop numbers – some of them quite hard hitting. Still the repertoir seemed to go down well with the audience, although the crowd did not loook very much like a rap/hip-hop audience..
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Left: Witness, after the concert, with Norwegian Minister of the Environment, Erik Solheim
Below: Witness with Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg and Norwegian Ambassador to Tanzania, Jon Lomøy
nedlandkultur.com 