The Zawose Queens announce tour and share ‘Mapendo’ from forthcoming album Maisha

The Zawose Queens’ summer tour will see them perform at a number of UK festivals including Glastonbury, WOMAD, Africa Oyé and Tropical Pressure, alongside other venues and festivals in Europe. They will be joined by musical collaborators and co-producers of their album, Tom Excell (Nubiyan Twist, Onipa), and Oli Barton-Wood (Jordan Rakei, Obongjayar, Nilufer Yanya).

In contrast to the airy, uplifting debut ‘Maisha’, new single ‘Mapendo’ is darker, weightier, and a reconstruction of drum ideas cherry-picked from a long creative jam, and treated with modular synth and dub-influenced space echo. Lyrically, ‘Mapendo’ is a simple love song —You are my love / Wherever you go, you bloom / Anywhere, you bloom— made special by the hypnotic harmonies of the singers, Pendo and Leah Zawose.

Pendo and Leah Zawose showcase the fluid polyrhythms and rapturous polyphonic singing of the Gogo (aka Wagogo) people of the arid, hilly Dodoma region of central Tanzania. The most famous exponent of this musical tradition is the late, great Dr. Hukwe Zawose (Pendo’s father and Leah’s grandfather).

Maisha, the debut album by The Zawose Queens, marks the first time that women from this famous musical family take their place as lead vocalists and performers. Emboldened by workshops in songwriting and music production with visiting UK-based producers Oli Barton-Wood and Tom Excell The Zawose Queens began writing their first ever songs. The resulting collection of songs range from the stripped back and traditional-sounding to those treated with subtle electronic elements, with beats and drops and found sounds and switch-ups.

The album will be released by Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records, the label on which the late Hukwe Zawose released a number of recordings in the 1990s. Hukwe performed at numerous WOMAD festivals and toured with the organization around the world, as well as supporting Peter Gabriel on his Growing Up tour in 2002. The Zawose Queens will follow in their father and grandfather’s footsteps by performing at WOMAD this July in Wiltshire.

The album Maisha will be released on CD, LP and digitally on 7 June 2024. ‘Mapendo’ and the title track are now available on all digital platforms.