Alex Perullo has written an ethnography that is as comprehensive as it is enjoyable to read. He shares with the reader his intimate knowledge of Dar es Salaam and its music economy, a knowledge he has gained during a total of three years of fieldwork stretched over more than a decade. During that period, Tanzania's music economy has become ‘one of the strongest music economies in all of Africa’ (p. xix). The title Live from Dar es Salaam is well chosen, as Perullo takes the reader on a multimedia journey to the Tanzanian metropolis. Interwoven with his analysis are vivid ethnographic descriptions that convey a feeling for what it means to live in the city and to participate in its music economy, be it as artists, radio DJs or music producers. These refreshing anecdotal accounts are complemented by references to video clips taken during field research that feature interviews as well as performances; these can be accessed via the Ethnomusicology Multimedia website.Footnote ¹ Numerous photographs in the book further add to the visual dimension of Perullo's work.

The main part of his research was conducted from 1999 to 2002, consisting of interviews, surveys and participant observation for which he worked at radio stations as well as for newspapers and music magazines. The author has been back to Tanzania on several subsequent trips and thus informal interviews and discussions that took place between 2005 and 2010 complete the corpus. Obviously, popular music scenes tend to change very rapidly – all the more so in Tanzania, where both the liberalization of the media sector in 1993 and increased access to new technologies have brought about an unprecedented growth in the production of popular music in the last two decades. Despite the difficulty in keeping up with this highly dynamic process, Perullo's monograph does not lack timeliness. He is especially interested in the strategies individuals pursue to realize their visions of success in an increasingly competitive environment. Focusing on music as a commercial product, he chooses the term ‘music economy’ instead of ‘music industry’ because, as he argues, ‘Tanzania may lack many of the components of other music industries, but music is still a source of commercialization where many different people attempt to profit from its production and distribution’ (p. xv).

The book includes eight chapters, of which the first provides a discussion of key concepts such as national culture, post-socialism and the social categorization of youth in the Tanzanian context. The history of Tanzanian popular music from the 1920s to the mid-1980s, when socialism collapsed, is explored in Chapter 2. The following chapters are dedicated to the contemporary period, each one focusing on a specific aspect of the music economy: performance; the various formal and informal ways of becoming a musician; the role of radio stations; and the role of recording studios. The huge issue of piracy in Tanzania's music economy is dealt with extensively.

The breadth of Perullo's monograph is impressive: not only does he cover the various aspects of the music economy, he also refers to all the musical genres produced in Tanzania, most notably muziki wa dansi (dance music), Bongo Flava (hip hop), taarab (sung Swahili poetry), muziki wa injili (gospel music), muziki wa kwaya (choral music) and ngoma (traditional dance or drumming songs). Reggae and mchiriku (electronic ngoma), which the author counts as being two of the eight major Tanzanian musical genres (p. 363), are less well explored.

In the concluding chapter, Perullo stresses the importance of underlining ‘transitions, rather than dramatic ruptures', which he understands as ways ‘to interpret shifts in people's desires, demands, and relationships to cultural forms’ (pp. 342–3). With Live from Dar es Salaam, Perullo undoubtedly succeeds in pointing the reader to continuities over time as well as between the various musical genres. Their protagonists share a lot in terms of strategies as well as challenges – something that is often overlooked by scholars who focus on one musical genre only. This very readable book is rounded off with four appendices that provide an overview of the eight Tanzanian musical genres, as well as detailed listings of radio and television stations in the country, promoters and clubs with live shows in Dar es Salaam.

A must-read for scholars of African popular music, it will certainly be of great interest to scholars of Tanzania as well as of popular music more generally. Beyond academic circles, it will be enjoyed by anyone who wants to know how people's creative practices shape an African country's past, present and future.