The Legacy of Tanzania Musicians: Muhidin Gurumo and Hassan Bitchuka: Rumba Kiserebuka! is an essential book about East African popular music. Through storytelling that integrates compelling ethnographic accounts and secondary sources, Frank Gunderson meticulously examines the creative lives of two masterminds behind the popular muziki wa dansi scene. He unveils a rare archive of the undocumented history and practice of Tanzanian rhumba music.” – Damascus Kafumbe, Middlebury College, author of Tuning the Kingdom, Kawuugulu Musical Performance, Politics, and Storytelling in Buganda. *** “Much of the scholarship on African music tells readers a lot about African musical styles and genres but very• little about the human subjects who create, perform, and use them. By examining the life, musical output, and style of Muhidin Gurumo and Hassan Bitchuka while broaching, along the way. issues of politics. economics, and spirituality. Gunderson unpacks. in a singular text, a uniquely Tanzanian musical lifeworld that is rooted in an African worldview. This is a must-read book and a pointer to an important new• direction in African musicology.” –Austin C. Okigbo, University of Colorado Boulder.*** “Finally! The Legacy of Tanzania Musicians Muhidin Gurumo and Hassan Bitchuka firmly situates musical biography in the center of the ethnomusicological canon. Gunderson’s comprehensive ethnographic study of two great Tanzanian musicians and the trajectory of their careers-from–governmental and government-related parastatal affiliation to independent musicians–is a tour de force and will quickly become the standard for all historical work in ethnomusicology” –Gregory Barz, Vanderbilt University.*** Muhidin Gurumo and Hassan Bitchuka are two of Tanzania’s most well-known singers in the popular music genre known as muziki wa dansi (literally, “music for dancing”), a variation of the Cuban-based rhumba idiom impactful throughout Central, Eastern and Western Africa. They worked together as partners for thirty years from 1973 to 2003. This dual biography investigates their lives and careers from an ethnomusicological and historical perspective, shining light on their creative processes, their choices regarding rare resources, and their own memories of the musical art they created during colonial rule, post-independence, and the contemporary neoliberal milieu.