Catalog

Malipenga dance music from the Tonga-speaking people of Malawi

Various Artists

Mozabique. Muganda dance with malipenga singing gourds, large muganda drum and smaller chandi drum.
Photograph by Hugh Tracey. Courtesy of the International Library of African Music.

The malipenga, dance music of the Tonga people of Nyasaland, now called Malawi, is said to have originated in imitations of military drills, substituting singing horns--kazoolike instruments--for military brass instruments. Hugh Tracey recorded this music in 1957. The people were from Malawi, but the recordings were made in mining compounds in Zambia and South Africa.

Track Listing

101	Muganda we Chitonga Banda (The drum of the Tonga Banda) Group of sixteen Tonga men and boys	02:42
102	Akapunda (The conqueror) Group of sixteen Tonga men and boys	02:14
103	Mungore Group of fourteen Tonga men	03:44