Siti binti Saad

Renowned for her mastery of taraab, Saad sang fluently in Swahili, Arabic, and Hindustani, winning audiences from the African mainland to the Indian subcontinent. An amateur vocal accompanist when first noticed, she later became the earliest East African musician to release commercial recordings. So great was her popularity from 1928 to 1939 that purpose-built studios appeared on Zanzibar solely to accommodate her sessions. More than 150 discs at 78 rpm are thought to have resulted from those years, yet today the originals survive only as cassettes.