It’s not every day that one can say, I had the pleasure of interviewing the first DJ to play at the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro – that being Tanzania’s very own, Mister Joozey. Having been a long-time fan of Joozey, I knew that he had a powerful story to tell the world of coming from humble beginnings to being one of the most highly sought after DJs from Tanzania.
In this interview we dive into his early childhood where loss drove his love for music and taking chances on himself, regardless of present limitations, became a defining feature of his journey.
As we began this interview, I quickly came to understand that music is everything to Joozey as he went on to detail how one of Tanzania’s biggest stars, Alikiba, was the catalyst to his interest in the art. He knew that he wanted to be in music from a young age but the how was still a lingering question that later revealed itself in the form of mixing records and mastering the craft of transitioning from one rhythm to the next.
Getting to this stage of making a career out of DJing, Joozey had to hustle his way through despair, dropping out of school, moving to cities where he knew no one, and working any and every job he could find to survive.
As if all of that hustling wasn’t enough, in 2023, Joozey made history when he decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and play a 16 minute set at the very top. This embark on Africa’s tallest mountain was a representation of Joozey’s unwavering focus on reaching new heights from conquering the local spots of Dar es Salaam to playing in the biggest venues and crowds across Tanzania, Dubai, Ethiopia and more.
Now, Joozey finds himself in another defining moment as he rebrands himself into an Afro House DJ. Mister Joozey is setting a space that is different. He is not merely doing music but creating a cultural movement that stretches far into fashion, culture, and the artistic expression of ambition.
Joozey’s commitment to his craft is quite frankly undeniable. When we conducted this interview he was due to play a set in front of thousands of people just a few hours afterwards. Nonetheless, he was very gracious with his time as our interview went over and Joozey was still keen on continuing our conversation.
Enjoy my conversation with Mr. Joozey and his Creative Director, John Odul.
What’s your earliest memory of the feeling you had when you first listened to music?
Mister Joozey: 2004 or 2005. After burying my uncle, my younger brother passed away the following morning. After my brother’s death, my mother was never the same. My mother asked what she could give to me, and I asked her to buy me a cassette of Alikiba’s Cinderella album. That day I discovered music could take me far away from my pain, hurt, and troubles of my life. That was the first time I said, ‘I must do something in music in the future.’ Alikiba saved my life I think and my family too.
What does music mean to you?
Joozey: At this moment, music means a lot. Music has brought a revolution to my family. I grew up in conditions that I complained about every day, but now I am in a spiritual relationship with music. Sometimes I say, maybe I am music. All the things I do are not necessarily for my own praise. Everything I do with music leads to so much fruition in my life. Music is a huge component of my life and it has connected me with people who’ve inspired me.
Before embarking on his DJ Career, Joozey always had a plan to move away from home to a bigger city that could offer him more life opportunities. Growing up in the Shinyanga region, he felt limited by the lack of opportunities in his hometown which set forth his initial move to Mwanza, the largest city in his part of Tanzania. He moved to Mwanza in 2010 and hustled his way through the town with any job he could find.
In 2013, he began his journey to Dar. Having no friends or family in Dar es Salaam, Joozey moved into the lively and busy neighborhood of Kariakoo where he picked up various jobs from library security guard, houseboy, burning CDs, and a petty trader to keep him afloat in the Tanzanian business capital.
After the government started cracking down on petty traders, Joozey was left without any means of making money which eventually led him into the world of Djing.
Joozey: I knew I loved music, and I wanted to look for something that I would never get tired of, something that would make it so that I wouldn’t have longing for any other job, something that made me happy whether it made me money or not. And most importantly, something that I could devote my life towards which is how I chose music, specifically Djing which I also knew would make it easier to get me connected with more people in Dar. DJing was a way to get me to a place where I could start making music.
One of the most brand defining aspects of a DJ is their stage name. Can you tell us how you came up with your name and its significance?
Joozey: When I had started Djing, I did not have a stage name. So when people would ask me what’s your name, I would just say my name is “Joseph.” And the late legendary Tanzanian DJ Steve-B, was the first person to call me DJ Joe and then later changed to DJ Jozé as a suggestion from a friend of mine who joked that I looked like someone from Congo based on my look at the time. Upon moving from playing in local spots to the more popular establishments like Masaki, Amour Shamte told me to add a ‘y’ to my name which brought us to DJ Joozey. And now, I want to divorce myself from the names that I was given by others, and I have decided to call myself Mr. Joozey so that I can start fresh and feel like I am an underground DJ. I want to rebrand myself into a new entity that is ready to take over the world.
How would you describe the current environment of the DJ scene in Dar es Salaam and Tanzania wit-large?
John Odul [Mister Joozey’s Creative Director]: We started somewhere and at a certain point we didn’t know how to go above where we began. The DJs in Tanzania have certainly built themselves up to this point but the biggest challenge with them is what I call, the monkey business – where they keep jumping from one genre to the next without really taking time to understand the music. Every DJ right now is all playing the same music, they are all playing Amapiano because it’s so commercialized. Most DJs have failed to become more creative instead of coming up with something that is unique that can separate them and create an audience that will relate to what they are doing.
Joozey: A lot of people are also doing it for money which is why you see a lot of [the DJs] doing whatever they can to trend to make quick money. I would also say that in Tanzania we haven’t fully cultivated our own sound that we could claim ownership, which is why John and I are trying to see how to shape this space and help our fellow [Tanzanian] DJs see the vision of where the world is headed and learn from the success we see from our friends in South Africa.
Mr. Joozey recently reintroduced himself to the world as an “Afro House DJ.” What was the reasoning behind this rebranding?
John: Afro House has a lot of history, and we start from house music which started in Chicago. Then we had the fusion of house into African culture making it Afro house to the point that it becomes an identity of Africa itself. And Afro House is so powerful. As you look at amapiano right now, it's transforming itself, slowly leaning more into Afro House. So, we also wanted to be a part of that journey. If this is the direction the world is taking, then we want to be sitting at the table.
I had a conversation with Joozey saying that, ‘I think it's time that we go that direction and nobody to this point is taking any risk in this country to do what we are doing.’
How have Tanzanians reacted to your “Afro House” rebrand?
Joozey: When we started the rebranding, Tanzanians weren’t fully onboard since they associated house music with the West. So, John and I had to sit down to think of ways of connecting with our audience by taking popular songs and turning them into Afro House remixes. And it has been easy for Tanzanians to now connect more with our Afro House direction, to where now they have become familiar with popular Afro House tracks. Right now, I am working on original Afro House tracks including ones that incorporate classical Swahili music from the likes of Bi Kidude.
One of Tanzania’s most popular home-grown sounds is Singeli, do you plan on doing any mixes or projects that incorporate this sound?
Joozey: A lot of the tracks that I play are Singeli. I always play Singeli every day because it works well in Tanzania. The challenge Singeli has from spreading internationally is for one reason, it is a hyper-localized Tanzanian-based sound. It has origins in local Swahili spiritual music called Mnanda from the coastal region of the country. So, what I am working on right now is developing a fusion sound of Singeli and Afro House as a way of standing out and doing something completely different from the field. But it’s also another way that I can help to introduce Singeli to the world, because its current arrangement is specifically made for the Tanzanian ear which makes it a little bit difficult to translate into the international market.
Another challenge with Singeli is that it is not an easy genre to mix from a DJ standpoint and it has very high BPMs with some tracks averaging around 200 BPMs. If a few of us here in Tanzania sit down and think about how to market and rearrange the sound, I think that it has a strong chance of going international.
In 2023, you played the Tanzanian national anthem on top of Mt Kilimanjaro, which is the highest free standing mountain in the world. Can you tell us what that moment meant for you, in not only climbing the mountain, but also being able to play in an environment that not many DJs around the world can ever claim to have done?
Joozey: Well, you know, that idea came from John.
John: We wanted to tell a story that not only involves music but that could integrate music, culture, and what we have as a country. The whole concept was to highlight all the places that are found in Tanzania that are a bit different from other countries. Joozey was to be that person to carry this task, and I don’t even know how he did it because it was quite a difficult task to pull through. Kilimanjaro was technically the final destination of this content rollout. And so, we are going to work backwards to the other destinations which include Zanzibar, Serengeti, to Mwanza, and Dodoma (Capitol of Tanzania), with every single destination requiring a set that represents the local essence of those spaces.
Joozey: For me, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and playing music there was actually very easy because my message was that ‘I am from Tanzania, and there is someone named Joozey here. We are coming to the world!’
I don’t think I could have finished this interview with a better ending than Mister Joozey’s very own words of claiming his spot in this growing global African DJ landscape. The world has been put on notice; Tanzania’s very own has a sound that your ears have not had the pleasure of absorbing.
