International Orchestra Safari Sound (sometimes shortened to IOSS) was a popular muziki wa dansi

Muziki wa dansi

Muziki wa dansi , or simply dansi, is a Tanzanian music genre, derivative of Congolese soukous. It is sometimes called Swahili jazz because most dansi lyrics are in Swahili, and "jazz" is an umbrella term used in Central and Eastern Africa to refer to soukous, highlife, and other dance music and...

 Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

n band from 1985 to 1992.

History

The band was founded by Tanzanian business man Hugo Kisima, who also owned another popular dansi band, the Orchestra Safari Sound

Orchestra Safari Sound

Orchestra Safari Sound was a major Tanzanian muziki wa dansi band in the 1970s. Along with Orchestra Maquis Original, OSS contributed to the evolution of dansi, introducing a slower paced and more melodic style that further differentiated dansi from its ancestor genre, the Congolese soukous...

. In 1985 he decided to disband Orchestra Safari Sound and create a new ensemble with talented musicians hired from major dansi bands such as Mlimani Park. Kisima chose singer Muhiddin Maalin Gurumo, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

ist Abel Balthazar, and singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 Hassani Bitchuka as the leaders of the new band.

The major mtindo (style) popularized by IOSS was ndekule, a word that is both a reference to traditional tanzanian war dances and to a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

s. The snake thus became the icon of the band.

In the 1980s

1980s

File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...

 IOSS and Mlimani Park dominated the dansi scene. This came to an end between 1987 and 1989 when Bitchuka and Maalim left. In the early 1990s

1990s

File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

 a new entry in the band's personnel, guitarist Nguza Mbangu (formerly Orchestra Maquis Original

Orchestra Maquis Original

Orchestra Maquis Original is a Tanzanian muziki wa dansi band, originally from DR Congo. Founded in 1970 and still in activity, it is one of the most long-lived dansi bands.-History:...

) revitalized IOSS for a while; Mbangu established a new mtindo, rashikanda wasaa, and wrote a big hit song, Mageuzi. Despite this, Kisima decided to disband the band in 1992.