A study of three songs by a Tanzanian youth choir reveals a synthesis of historical and intellectual sources ranging from precolonial social philosophy to Lutheran theology to Nyerere’s ‘ujamaa’ socialism. The Ipogoro Youth Choir, in Iringa, in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands, uses the voice granted to them as a church choir to argue for a national ideology that draws on both pre-Christian local concepts and modern government priorities and enfolds them into a new Christian theology in which youth, as youth, have an important responsibility in society. Using the resonant pre-Christian cultural memories, the choir argues for the reestablishment of social structures that were destroyed by the colonial State. In appropriating an active role in shaping Christian ideology, the choir members reinterpret its theology into something wholly new and uniquely Tanzanian. The three songs – the original text and English translation of which are included in the study – were recorded in 2001. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
