DAR ES SALAAM, May 3 -- THE other morning, at a perfectly respectable hour when one ought to be minding ones tea and pretending to be productive, I received a music video clip from Paris.

Because it was before I had even taken my first proper sip of uji wa uwele, my entire sense of national musical confidence had quietly packed its bags and slipped out of the room.

There it was: Zaiko Langa Langa in full, unapologetic splendour, turning Le Zénith club into something that looked less like a Parisian concert hall and more like Kinshasa with superior lighting and significantly better crowd control.

The audience was not merely dancing. No, no they were confessing. People were sweating as if rhythm had unearthed unresolved ancestral ma...