KENYA HAKUNA MATATA-Teddy Kalanda Harrison & Them Mushrooms

“HAKUNA MATATA, HOW IT ALL STARTED“ by TEDDY KALANDA HARRISON. One evening in November 1979 after a great performance with my band THEM MUSHROOMS at the SEVERIN SEA LODGE in Mombasa, I overheard some tourists at the pool bar joking around and trying to speak Kiswahili. ‘JAMBO, HABARI, MZURI SANA’ they said. An idea struck me and I thought I should write a fun song with the simplest words in Kiswahili and we could get these tourists to learn the language as they sing along with us whilst dancing to our music. This is how the song which is today the MOST WONDERFUL PHRASE in Kiswahili came to be and the rest as the saying goes is HISTORY. On 21st February 1980 me and my band THEM MUSHROOMS recorded four tracks at the POLYGRAM studio in Nairobi. One of those songs was KENYA HAKUNA MATATA. The song was an instant hit with the tourists where ever we played. All the other bands in Mombasa had to play it too as the tourists seemed like they just could not get enough of it. KENYA HAKUNA MATATA went SILVER in 1982, GOL