Tanzania and Zanzibar mix-tape

I have a confession to make. The Africa thing was not my idea. I stole it from my friends. Brandon and Mike, who have both worked for Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) in Zambia and Sierra Leone, respectively, had evidently done this years before me. I'm just a copycat.

Continuing this thieving trend, I'm going to nick another idea that originated with Brandon and continued with Mike – a mixtape for the country I stayed in.

Mike and Brandon seemed to be exposed to a lot of second-hand music on radio and otherwise in their countries. I didn't hear as much in Tanzania (except a music video by a one-armed acrobatic worship singer called Jean something), so my list is mostly restricted just to stuff I've listened to on my iPod, with a few exceptions.

1. MIA – “Jimmy”

On the ferry over to Zanzibar, I was stuck in economy class watching some weird Bollywood musical about a dude called Jimmy who is scared to play electric guitar because his lover was electrocuted whilst using one, or something. Suddenly, this song pops through the speakers – albeit in original 1970s groove – and I realized that I knew it. Sure, it's annoying as hell, and requires skipping after about 30 seconds, but MIA's cover earns a position on this playlist because of that boat trip.

2. Matt Mays – “Travellin'”

I had this song on heavy rotation before heading off to Africa via KLM from Toronto, and it has continued to spin ever since. Technically, it's written from the wrong perspective – Matt Mays laments his girlfriend going away for too long – but the general theme of putting on your “travellin' shoes” and seeing a different side to the world is one that rings true with any cross-cultural endeavour.

3. Sam Roberts - “Lions of the Kalahari”

Cruising through the Serengeti plains with the wind blowing through my hair as I stood upright in an open-top Landrover, Sam Roberts' song about getting eaten by lions was in my head about eight times a day during my February safari. I may have sung it out loud a few times actually, as the wind was just loud enough to mask my beautiful crooning.

4. Queen - “Seaside Rendezvous”

“Seaside Rendezvous” is Queen's least-rocking song, and therefore not one of their best, but it had particular relevance to the Zanzibar leg of my trip. After my birthday dinner at Mercury's seaside restaurant, I lay in bed and listened to some Queen – and instantly knew that Freddie's camp little ditty deserved a place here.

5. Loudon Wainwright III - “Grey in LA”

Mr. Wainwright senior's ode to rainfall in a typically sunny place came into my head pretty much anytime in rained here in Tanzania – which happened quite often and increasingly so as time stretched closer to the long rain season. At the end of my trip, now, three other songs of Loudon's have also come to mind: “The Home Stretch”, “Expatriot” and “Your Mother and I” - the latter because I just heard that Kate McGarigle died.

6. Grizzly Bear - “Two Weeks”

In the spirit of the aforementioned “The Home Stretch” by Wainwright, “Two Weeks” kept popping into my head about a fortnight ago when I realized that I only had that much time remaining in my trip. It's also a great song to have in your head, so I let it stay there.

7. The Beatles - “I'll Follow the Sun”

After the grey comes the sun, and no one seems to know it better than the Beatles. This track, from Beatles for Sale, sounds a little out of place on an album full of poppy numbers like “Eight Days a Week” and “Rock n' Roll Music”. But its endearingly sweet lyrics and subconsciously catchy chorus foreshadow what the band would later be musically capable of. And it's about sun! Which there's lots of in Tanzania.

8. Hey Rosetta! - “A Thousand Suns”

Again, no real reason for this song's placement except that I listened to it almost daily and it's got some lyrics about sun. Moreover, a “thousand” suns, which is what it feels like is beating down on me most days in bright Tengeru.

9. Eddie Vedder - “Far Behind”

Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into The Wild is a wonderful companion to any adventure into a wild and crazy place. I listened to it on repeat before flying over to Africa, but the song that's stuck around longest on my iPod is “Far Behind”, a true ode to leaving everything and everyone you know back at home... for a little while, at least. I could have put “Big Hard Sun” in instead, but that might have been ultraviolet overload.

10. Doves - “Some Cities”

Driving by coach into Dar Es Salaam, Doves' industrial pounding provided good companionship to my transition from the wild north of Tanzania into the concrete jungle of Dar. Any Doves song is good for a road trip, really, there's something both epic and kinetic about their sound.

11. The Beatles - “Got To Get You Into My Life”

This funky number – also a McCartney track, naturally – was a song I listened to on the drive from my parent's house in Newmarket to Toronto airport. “I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there,” goes the first line. “Sounds like you,” commented my mum. Respect.

12. Arkells - “Pullin' Punches”

“Pullin' Punches” has absolutely nothing to do with Tanzania, but it's definitely the song I've listened to the most while here. Hearing Hamilton's Arkells - one of the best live bands I've ever seen - is a nice reminder of one of my favourite things to do in Canada: go to gigs with my friends. If there's one song that's helped me to stay sane here, it's this one.

13. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - “Yaad-E-Nabi Gulshan Mehka”

Give this song a listen and you might think I'm a bit of a music snob for putting it in (or just a douche), but I listened to a fair bit of Nusrat while away in Zanzibar. His soothing Indian rhythms put me in the right frame of mind to appreciate the island's rich cosmopolitan atmosphere. There, that didn't sound snobbish at all.

14. K'Naan – “Wavin' Flag”

No respectable Africa playlist by a Canadian music fan can go without K'Naan. I was originally going to put “Somalia” here instead, because its lyrics about street kids and general hood life in Africa related sharply to my surroundings. But on the daladala the other day to Arusha, I heard “Wavin' Flag” on the radio – well, I heard a female voice singing a Coca Cola commercial to the exact same tune – and I knew it belonged on my playlist. It's a little surreal to hear the now world-famous melody over here on the other side of the planet – especially considering I got to interview K'Naan for my university paper in 2005. Also, if you didn't know already, this song is the official South Africa 2010 World Cup anthem, so you're going to hear it a lot come June.

Note: Can-con count = 6 out of 14.