HIGH CLASS A.K.A UNDERGROUND SOULS

tAbbas Maunda, member of Kwanza Unit and also the leader of High Class - The Underground Souls, formed in 1997. The other members are Baraka Kongwa and Steven Mbowe. They do something they call rap-jazz or hip-hop jazz. And by "jazz" they mean the Tanzanian "Swahili Jazz", not the U.S. jazz.
We combine it by playing jazz instruments live while we are rhyming. But now we don't have any instruments. But this uncle of mine he's a jazz player. I go to the the rehearsals and put my lyrics in: I definitely feel the rhythm of jazz when I put my words in.
Abbas started to rap when his family lived in England. He sees himsef as an educator:
In Tanzania hip-hop is not that big. It's big in terms of number of crews, but not in terms of knowledge of the art. The art in their mind is so low. What we are trying in our songs is to educate them, kids and other crews, that although you're in the game you should do this and this. So our big thing is to educate. We talk about 'first educate yourself, then come into the game'. We create hip-hop by educating. At the same time we talk about not to loose your tradition. To keep the tradition in your hands, not to loose it.
We Tanzanians are supposed to be in a specific way. We should follow our culture so when anybody sees you they say: "This is a Tanzanian".
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You can represent hip-hop culture in a Tanzanian way. Most of the hip-hoppers in America they talk about violence. Me personally, violence, I don't take it. So I talk the way we live in Tanzania. Hip-hop the way we live in Tanzania. This hip-hop can change by the way you're living. In America they live in violence. But we live in an African way, hip-hop in and African way. Just because Americans live in that kind of way it should mean that we should live in that kind of way. No. We can live the same hip-hop, but in an African way.