IN THE MEMORY OF THE GREAT MUSICIAN SALUM ABDALLAH YAZIDU 'SAY'

 

Salum Abdallah Yazidu

Without any doubt, the Tanzanian film that is now popular on international platforms is a film called Vuta N'kuvute –Tug of war

This film is adapted from a story written by  Shafi Adam Shafi. A story  on the love life between a Zanzibari boy Denge, who was also an activist for wanting the colonialists to leave Zanzibar, and an Indian girl Yasmin who had escaped from her old Indian husband. The story is set in the 50s during the British colonial rule in Zanzibar.

In the film there was a part that had Salum Abdallah and his band the Cuban Marimba from Morogoro, performed a show in Zanzibar. The show was attended by Denge and his friends. I was lucky to be picked to do a research on the type of music that was performed by Salum Abdallah and his band in those years, and eventually I was given the chance to play  'Salum Abdallah' in the film, which I considered a great honor.

In the early 50s, Cuban Marimba Band like most of the bands then did not have electric instruments. Like many other bands then Cuban Marimba Band has acoustic guitars, banjos, traditional drums, trumpets and saxophones. After doing some research, I was able to find three very old Cuban Marimba Band songs. In collaboration with musicians from  Zanzibar’s  Dhow Countries Music Academy, we practiced and recorded three songs, then used those songs  in the film. The song called 'Mpenzi wangu umebadili nia’ has become a favorite song every time this movie has been shown.

Today, November 19, we commemorate 57 years since Salum Abdallah was laid to rest.

  On November 18, 1965 which was a Thursday,  Morogoro town was expecting a visit from the then president Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere and and the Vice President Rashid Mfaume Kawawa. The two top leaders were to officiate  the opening ceremony of a large and important college for the development of agriculture in the country, the Morogoro College of Agriculture, which is currently known as SUA (Sokoine University of Agriculture). The MP for Morogoro Oscar Kambona was also expected to be in the city at that time.

The two big bands from Morogoro town, Cuban Marimba Band led by Salum Abdallah Yazidu, who liked to be known by the abbreviation of his name ‘SAY’, and the Morogoro Jazz Band, were scheduled to be visited by the country's leading leaders during their performances. It was obviously a great honor for the musicians, and due to the great competition of the bands, the musicians and the fans of the bands were in high spirits waiting for the battle of that important night in the history of the city of Morogoro.

 Salum Abdallah, in addition to being a musician, was also in the business of trucks supplying building materials, and at that time he had a contract to provide sand for stones for National Housing Corporation to build houses in Morogoro.

At around six o'clock in the evening after the day's hustle and bustle of receiving leaders ended, Ramadhan Mdidi who was the assistant to one of Salum Abdallah's truck drivers, came to inform Salum that one of his lorries was stuck in the sand in the riverbed where they had been digging sand, so it was wise to remove the lorry immediately lest it should rain. Salum Abdallah ordered the car to be towed.

Salum sent one of his  musician Waziri Nyange to oversee sound checking at the hall where they were supposed to perform that evening, and he went with another truck to tow the lorry stuck in the sand.

On that day, the Cuban Marimba Band were scheduled to play music in the Community Center hall, while their colleagues, the Morogoro Jazz Band, were scheduled to play in another hall in Kichangani.

About an hour later, a young man who was in the truck that had  left with Salum Abdallah ran back to Salum Abdallah's house and informed them that there had been an accident and Salum was injured. This accident was remarkable and for many years afterwards it created an interesting topic among Cuban Marimba Fans.

According to those who were present, darkness had already set in and when the truck in which Salum Abdallah was in , and just as it was nearing Msamvu, the headlights suddenly went out and the car swerved and hit a curb on the side of the road, but the lights came on again, it was so quick that those on the back of the truck started laughing, but their laughter stopped suddenly after realizing that the door on the side where Salum was sitting was open and he had fallen off. They went back and found him lying on the road moaning in pain. At the same time, a white man in a small car, stopped by and picked two people from the scene, one went to Salum's house to give information and the other went to take a taxi which came and  took the injured to the hospital. When he arrived at the hospital, the doctors asked Salim to stretch his arms and then his legs when he could, they assumed that he had not broken any bones but he was having were just superficial pain that would end, in fact they discharged hime and told him to report the next morning. At that time X-Ray technology was still rare. Salum ordered his band not to perform that day, his friends stayed with him throughout the pain filled night.

The next day, early in the morning the patient was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery and it was discovered that he had broken his hip and a piece of bone ruptured his bladder, which due to the delay in treatment things were now very bad. About one o'clock in the afternoon, he was taken out of the operating room and his friends who were waiting were told to go home and eat well so that they would come later to donate blood for the patient. They went out happily knowing that things will be okay. They headed to their club house and prepared food and ate happily. They even started to be a joke, one of them saying, "If the Arab recovers, he will come up with a very strong hit about this incident". Salum's father was a real Arab, and so Salum's friends used to call him 'the Arab'. Unfortunately, about four in the afternoon they received the sad news that Salum had passed away. News spread and people began  flocking  to his house, they found that the dead body had already been brought home and was placed in a room that had Salum had prepared for starting a shop.
 There is another version of the story that tells that after Salum was known to have died, the Chief Regional Doctor drove his car to Salum's house and parked his car outside the musicians house and started crying, everybody around immediately understood that things had gone wrong, so they were able to prepare the room for  Salum's body, so his fans could see him for the last time. It didn't take long for the news to spread in Morogoro and there was so much commotion that police were needed due to the large number of people who gathered at the house of their beloved Salum Abdallah.

The next day the situation became more difficult when escorting the corpse to the cemetery, it was as if everyone wanted to just even touch the coffin  to show love, it was again  necessary for the police to be called to bring harmony.  Salum's coffin was a carried from his mother’s house in Nunge  to Msamvu where he was buried,  aline sstreched between these two places, although the deceased had many trucks, no car was used to carry his body, his fans lovingly did that.

Salum Abdallah's song  EE Mola wangu (OH My Lord) that he composed shortly before his death, brought many interpretations and especially due to circumstances of his death. A few lines song said this;

O my Lord O my Lord,

Strip me of the world,

People of the world,

Are looking for ways to kill me ,

They want to oppress my soul,

From Love and happiness,

And I give my greetings,

To my brothers and relatives

Of love and happiness

To ease them the pain

When the accident gets me

While crying for me

I will tell God

How I was treated in the world

It was believed he knew someone wanted him dead, that’s why he composed the song.

Iis now 57 years since the death of Salum Abdallah Yazidu 'SAY', but Cuban Marimba Band songs such as, Wanawake wa Tanzania, Shemeji Shemeji, Ngoma iko huku, can still be heard in the music scene from time to time and even continue to be performed on stage with young musicians, some of whom even their parents were not born the day Salum Abdallah died.

And the film Vuta N'kuvute has reminded us again of the fame of the great Salum Abdallah.

 

MAY HE CONTINUE TO REST IN ETERNAL PEACE