She was born prematurely and sang until her 100th birthday. Fatima bint Baraka "Kidoudi", an icon of art and music in Tanzania and Africa

Fatima bint Baraka, nicknamed "Black Carnation" and "Be Kiddody", a nickname meaning "Little Grandmother", is an African-Muslim, Tanzanian artist born in 1910 in Zanzibar and died in 2013, and considered by many to be the queen of African music and oniago music.

She received the WOMEX Award in 2005 for her great influence on music and culture in Tanzania and Africa, and has presented great humanitarian works that are considered the pride of the African continent.

She was considered the first perennial in the world among the singers who used their songs in criticizing society and the corruption of rulers, as she dedicated her art and career to supporting the toilers and sang until she was 100 years old. It has a unique sound material, even recorded from the rarest international voices and classified its works from the preserved world heritage.

Birth and upbringing

Fatima bint Baraka does not know a specific birth date, but it is likely that she was born prematurely after only 7 months of pregnancy, in the village of Mvajimarino in Zanzibar, and accounts differ between those who say that she was born in 1910, and those who say that she was born years later.

"Kiddodi" in the Zanzibari dialect means little and very small, a name that accompanied Fatima bint Baraka throughout her life to remind her of her premature birth and slim physique in her childhood.

Her father sold coconuts in Zanzibar during the period of the English occupation, and she loved singing from an early age and passion for it, and she sang at the age of ten on the ports that merchants and visitors to her island pass through during trade and leisure trips.

Fatima was awarded the WOMICS International Prize in recognition of her career, cultural influence and as a "symbol of libertarian music" (French)

She was known for singing Swahili Tarab but the talented child did not get attention at the time because everyone avoided her and did not approach her because of her shabby clothes that made her appear vagabond, and sometimes she wore sailors' clothes and it was difficult to distinguish between them.

She would go invisibly to sit in front of the house of Zanzibar's first artist, Siti Bint Saad, to listen and memorize the songs of this locally famous artist, who is the first woman to sing in front of an audience in Zanzibar, and also the first woman to record a CD in East Africa.

After her parents separated, Fatima bint Baraka married at the age of 13 but decided to run away and chose to continue her artistic career, remarried but had no children.

Artistic Experience

Kidody started working with some local folk bands in the twenties of the last century, and then introduced traditional music called dombak music, which relied heavily on African rhythms and drums, with classical tarab patterns from the heritage of the Swahili island of Zanzibar.

Influenced by Zanzibar's singing pioneer Siti Bin Saad, Fatima also became one of the first women to sing in public, in a bold move within a society with its own customs, traditions and values.

In 1928, Siti bint Saad travelled to Bombay to record the first song by an African artist, while Kidody embarked on a tour of East Africa that went from country to country by train.

In the early sixties of the last century, Fatima formed her first musical band, called "Culture", and chose her home as a place for rehearsals and playing, and then chose to move to the city of Bagayomo.

In 1984, she was chosen to perform songs by Zanzibar star Siti Bint Saad at the Bowani Hostel, but the ridicule she faced due to her advanced age and the bullying of her appearance during her performances at the hostel led her to choose to retire for a few years.

Fatima Bint Baraka is best known for her music that combines Arabic and African influences (French)

At the end of the eighties, joining the "Shining Stars" band of its owner Mohamed Elias, allowed her to return to the glow again, as she became the main singer of the band, and began to know the path of fame during the years of singing with that band and traveled with it on concert tours in Europe and the Far East, and became famous abroad.

Then, in the early nineties, she joined the Dar es Salaam (Shikamo Jazz) Ensemble, a band that mixes music with jazz, made up of a group of elderly musicians from Dar es Salaam supported by the British organization HelpAge International.

On a tour of Britain in 1995, Fatima was a major attraction at Womad in Reading, where her deep, emotional voice expressed Omar's experience.

In addition to the Zanzibari heritage, she sang in Arabic and was famous for performing the songs of the Egyptian singer um Kulthum, composed by the Egyptian musician Mohamed Abdel Wahab, and jazz music.

She traveled to many countries and sang barefoot as usual, dazzling large audiences in Poland, England, Italy, Germany and Sweden.

Kiddodi the human

Kidody considered singing as her way to express her gender, and her songs often carried a lot of ridicule of men's behavior towards women and their abuse.

In 1940, she founded the "Initiative" movement to help Swahili girls transition from childhood to adulthood, and through ancient rituals she helped girls hold marriage ceremonies, and she formulated advice to the bride in lovely songs.

Tanzanians considered her a mother and grandmother, so she was nicknamed the "Little Grandmother", as she was kind to the poor, helped the needy, cared for many orphans, and provided support and assistance to many young artists.

Another business that Kidodi was busy with was treating asthma with natural herbs according to traditional folk medicine culture, so it was customary to watch patients stand for treatment in front of her modest home where she lived with relatives.

"Black Carnation" died less than a year after quitting singing in 2013 at the age of 100 (French)

Awards and Recognitions

• In 2005, she was awarded the WOMICS International Prize, in recognition of her career and cultural influence, and as a "symbol of libertarian music" in the world.
• In 2006, a documentary film was released about her biography and the highlights of her life.
• Tanzania awarded her the Order of Merit in 2012.

Death

Fatima bint Baraka "Be Kiddodi" ended up in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, and disappeared in 2012 and headlines such as "The secret of the kidnapping of Kiddodi" spread in the newspapers, so her nephew announced that he had detained her to prevent her from being exploited by her musicians, and that he would prevent her from singing because of the condition of her lungs.

Less than a year after she stopped singing on April 13, 2013, at the age of 100, she was buried in the village of Kitumba, and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikubti attended her funeral with hundreds at an official funeral.