!Zanzibar Taarab Kidumbak Ensemble performing in Stone Town A traditional taarab/kidumbak ensemble — oud, qanun, violins, percussion.
⏱️ Reading time: 8 min
You hear it before you see anything. Somebody picks up the oud — a short-necked Arab lute — and plays a slow run of notes. A qanun answers from the other side of the room. Then a couple of violins, a drum, and a singer steps to the front. The room goes quiet. Everyone leans in a bit. That’s taarab, and once you’ve heard it live in Stone Town, you sort of get why people fly here just for the music.
Taarab is Zanzibar’s signature sound. The short version: an Arab lute, a Persian zither, European violins, African drums, and Kiswahili poetry on top. A thousand years of Indian Ocean trade, all sitting in one ensemble. It sounds older than it is — the modern form is only about 140 years old — and it does the work for you. You don’t need to know the language to feel it.
This guide is for working out where to hear good music in Zanzibar, when to come for it, and how to fit it into a trip based at Mr. Kahawa in Paje.
The short version
- Taarab is the genre to chase. Best heard live in Stone Town — at Culture Musical Club or the Dhow Countries Music Academy (DCMA).
- Sauti za Busara (“Sounds of Wisdom”) is East Africa’s biggest music festival. Early February, Stone Town, 400+ artists across three days. Book early or just don’t come that week — the island fills up.
- **Live music at *Kahawa*** — we run live evenings most weeks on the café terrace. Acoustic sets, taarab nights, DJ sundowners. See Music & Events.
- Stone Town has the depth. Paje has the relaxed evening pull. Most people do both.
- Best months for a music trip: February (Sauti za Busara) and July (ZIFF — the film festival has serious music programming).
What taarab actually sounds like
The word taarab comes from Arabic and roughly means “to be moved by beauty”. Untranslatable, really. You hear it once and you understand.
It started in the 1880s when Sultan Seyyid Barghash bin Said brought Egyptian musicians to the Stone Town palace. They taught a court ensemble. For about twenty years it stayed a rich-people thing — palace walls, closed doors.
Then Siti binti Saad changed all that. A Tanzanian-born singer who came to Zanzibar in the 1920s, she did two things nobody had done before. She sang in Kiswahili instead of Arabic. And she took the music out of the palace — into weddings, into the streets, into the musical clubs of the old city. By the late 1920s her records were selling across East Africa, the Middle East and India. She’s the reason modern taarab exists in the form you can still hear today.
> “Taarab has a spiritual dimension for me. The poetry carries me. When I sing, I feel like I’m in paradise.” > > — Siti Amina, contemporary taarab singer
A traditional ensemble has:
- The oud — short-necked Arab lute, the lead melodic instrument
- The qanun — a flat plucked zither from Persia, sounds like rain on glass
- Several violins — European, but fully at home here
- An accordion in some groups
- Percussion — darbuka (goblet drum), bongo, tambourine, daff (frame drum)
- A lead singer — historically often a woman, with a back-up choir
The lyrics are Kiswahili poetry, sometimes improvised, often romantic, sometimes sly. A good taarab singer can slip a sharp dig at the mother-in-law into a love song, and half the room will laugh while the rest pretend not to notice. If you’ve never danced to taarab sober, try it — the music does the work for you.
!Zanzibari taarab performance with traditional ensemble A taarab evening in Stone Town. Slow, layered, hypnotic — the kind of music you settle into.
Where to hear taarab in Stone Town
Culture Musical Club
Founded in 1958, Culture Musical Club is one of the most respected taarab orchestras on the island. Rehearsals are open most evenings for a small fee. They perform at festivals and weddings the rest of the year. The musicians still wear black jackets over white robes — the visuals are looked after as carefully as the sound.
Address: Vuga, Stone Town. Times shift — confirm locally before you turn up.
Dhow Countries Music Academy (DCMA)
The DCMA is the closest thing Zanzibar has to a national music school. Founded in 2002, it has trained more than 1,600 students — about 70% of them in taarab. They run regular evening concerts at their building near the seafront, mixing master musicians with the next generation coming up.
If you’re picking one place to hear taarab in Stone Town, the DCMA is what we send guests to. Good music, easy to book, intimate room.
Address: just south of Forodhani Gardens.
Old Fort (Ngome Kongwe)
The Old Fort hosts Sauti za Busara every February and other concerts through the year. The amphitheatre inside the fort is one of the loveliest music venues in East Africa — open sky, old stone walls, sea air drifting in.
Hotel rooftops and restaurants
Several Stone Town hotels run live taarab one or two evenings a week — the Emerson family hotels (Emerson Spice, Emerson on Hurumzi), the Tea House Restaurant, and a couple of rooftops along Mizingani Road. Ask your hotel front desk when you arrive; the schedules move around.
For more on doing Stone Town as a day trip from Paje, see our Stone Town day-trip guide.
Sauti za Busara — the festival
Sauti za Busara — “Sounds of Wisdom” in Kiswahili — is East Africa’s biggest annual music festival. Three days in early February, in Stone Town. The Old Fort is the main stage, with smaller stages around the old city. Over 400 artists — traditional taarab orchestras, Afrobeat, jazz, hip-hop, electronic acts, African pop. BBC World Service has called it one of Africa’s best festivals. It earns the rating.
Practical bits:
- Dates: early February, usually the second week. The festival site has the year’s confirmed dates.
- Venue: Old Fort amphitheatre plus smaller stages around Stone Town.
- Tickets: day passes around USD 30, weekend passes around USD 70. Prices shift year to year.
- Where to stay: Stone Town fills up first. Book by November. Paje is the spillover.
- The honest trade-off: Sauti za Busara week is the most expensive and crowded week of the Zanzibar year. Either commit and book early, or pick a different week. Trying to squeeze in last-minute usually ends in tears.
- Combining with Paje: the standard plan is 3 nights Stone Town for the festival, then a week in Paje. We sort the transfer.
If your dates are flexible, building a February trip around Sauti za Busara is one of the best music-and-beach combinations in East Africa.
Live music at Kahawa, Paje
Stone Town is where the deep tradition lives. Paje is where the evening rhythm happens.
Our café-restaurant runs live music several evenings a week. The current rotation is roughly:
- Acoustic singer-songwriter sets on quieter weekdays — Tanzanian musicians and visiting players, usually early evening
- ***Taarab* evenings** a few times a month — often DCMA-affiliated musicians from Stone Town who come down for the night
- DJ sundowners on Friday and Saturday — Afrohouse, Afrobeat, electronic
- Documentary nights on quieter Sundays — film plus a chat afterwards
- Special nights around Ramadan, Eid and Mwaka Kogwa
The current schedule lives on the Music & Events page. The terrace seats about fifty, the Indian almond tree is overhead, the lagoon’s out front. No cover charge. Book a table if you want to eat.
> “We’re not trying to be a concert venue. It’s a beach café with a kitchen and a tree and the tide going in and out. The music slots into that. Some nights it’s one guitarist and twenty people. Some nights the taarab group is in and the whole terrace is full. Both work — you just feel the place differently.” > > — Sharida, music organiser at Mr. Kahawa
!Rajab Suleiman and Kithara performing modern taarab in Zanzibar Modern taarab — Rajab Suleiman & Kithara, one of the touring ensembles we love.
Other Zanzibari genres worth a listen
Beyond taarab, a few other things to put on your radar.
Mtindo
A faster, dance-leaning evolution of taarab. Smaller groups, more direct lyrics, more about celebration than contemplation. East African Melody is the best-known group — fans call it “taarab you can actually dance to”.
Bongo Flava
Tanzania’s main pop genre — hip-hop, R&B and Kiswahili lyrics blended together. You’ll hear it on every other radio and in most bars. Diamond Platnumz is the biggest name; Vanessa Mdee and Harmonize are right behind him.
Singeli
A high-speed electronic genre out of Dar es Salaam, around since the 2010s. Tracks run at 200+ BPM. Fun, frantic, and mostly heard in the louder Stone Town clubs.
Maulidi
Traditional Islamic devotional songs, sung at religious gatherings — the Prophet’s birthday, Eid, Ramadan. Older than taarab, slower, deeply quiet. If you happen to be in Stone Town when a Maulidi is on, it’s worth stopping to listen.
A music-focused week — sample plan
If music is the main reason you’re coming, here’s a 7-day plan we’d build:
| Day | Activity |
|---|---|
| 1 | Arrive Stone Town. Settle in. Evening walk to Forodhani for street food; listen for live music drifting off the rooftops. |
| 2 | Morning: Stone Town walking tour. Evening: DCMA concert (book ahead). |
| 3 | Morning: spice tour. Evening: dinner with live taarab at Emerson Spice rooftop. |
| 4 | Transfer to Paje. Sundowner at Kahawa. |
| 5 | Beach day. Evening: live music night at Kahawa (check the schedule). |
| 6 | Beach day. Evening: DJ sundowner or acoustic night. |
| 7 | Final morning, transfer to airport. |
If your dates land on Sauti za Busara, swap days 2–4 for the festival weekend in Stone Town.
Want help planning a music week?
Tell us when you’re coming and what you’d like to hear. We’ll match you to a live night at Kahawa, book your Stone Town concert tickets, sort the transfer, and if you want, get you onto a DCMA workshop. Music’s one of the most underrated parts of a Zanzibar trip — easy to miss if nobody points you at it.
Music & Events at Mr. Kahawa → · See our rooms → · Stone Town day trip →
Common questions
What is the traditional music of Zanzibar?
Taarab. A fusion of Arab, Persian, Indian, African and European music, sung in Kiswahili. It started in the 1880s in the Stone Town royal court and went mainstream in the 1920s thanks to Siti binti Saad. A traditional ensemble has oud (Arab lute), qanun (Persian zither), violins, sometimes an accordion, percussion, and a lead singer with a chorus.
Where can I hear live music in Zanzibar?
**For traditional taarab: Stone Town — the DCMA, Culture Musical Club, the Emerson Spice rooftop, the Tea House Restaurant. For relaxed beach evenings:** Paje and Bwejuu beach restaurants, including our own Music & Events nights at Kahawa. For festival-scale music: Sauti za Busara in February (Stone Town, Old Fort).
When is the Sauti za Busara festival?
Early February — usually the second weekend. Always check the festival site for the year’s confirmed dates. Held in Stone Town at the Old Fort and venues nearby. Three days, 400+ artists. Book Stone Town accommodation by November if you want to go.
What is the Dhow Countries Music Academy?
A music school in Stone Town, founded in 2002. They’ve trained over 1,600 students across the region, about 70% of them in taarab. They run regular evening concerts that mix master musicians with students coming up — one of the best ways to hear high-quality taarab in a small room.
Who is Siti binti Saad?
The mother of modern taarab. Born in mainland Tanzania around 1880, she came to Zanzibar as a young woman and pulled the genre out of the palace into the streets. She sang in Kiswahili rather than Arabic, broke gender barriers in a male-dominated scene, and became East Africa’s first internationally recorded artist in the late 1920s. The taarab you hear in Stone Town today is essentially what she shaped.
Is there live music every night at Mr. Kahawa?
Several evenings a week, not every night. The schedule rotates with the season — acoustic sets on weekdays, DJ sundowners Friday and Saturday, taarab nights a few times a month, occasional documentary nights on Sundays. Check the Music & Events page for the current run.
What is bongo flava?
Tanzania’s main pop genre — hip-hop, R&B and Kiswahili lyrics, often with heavy synth and electronic production. Diamond Platnumz, Vanessa Mdee and Harmonize are the biggest names. You’ll hear it everywhere on Zanzibari radio and in the non-traditional bars and clubs.
Can I learn to play taarab in Zanzibar?
Yep. The DCMA runs short workshops for visiting students, usually 3–5 days, around USD 100–250. You can pick up basics of oud, qanun or vocal taarab. Worth it if you’re a musician of any level — even one session sticks.
What’s the best month for a music-focused Zanzibar trip?
February for Sauti za Busara. July for the Zanzibar International Film Festival — the film programming is the headline, but ZIFF has serious music alongside it. Year-round for DCMA concerts and the regular live scene.
—
A taarab evening at the Old Fort during Sauti za Busara, with the moon up over Stone Town and the oud opening a Siti binti Saad song from 1928 — that’s one of the clearer “yes, this is why I came” moments you can have in East Africa. And the quieter nights at Kahawa, with one guitarist on the verandah and the lagoon glassy at low tide, have their own pull. Different keys, same island.
We’ll see you at the next one.
Karibu sana — you are most welcome.
— The Mr. Kahawa team