248 african appropriations
sales. However, piracy and their own promotional activities of offering
free downloads tend to minimize their revenues. W hite Nigerian doesn’t
even attempt to sell his songs. Gate fees from live acts are another source
of i ncome. However, t hey do not book enoug h concer ts to ma ke t h is a rel i-
able source of income. To make ends meet, all of them display a consider-
able amount of creativity. In addition to his music, EES sells a whole Nam
fl ava l i fest yle, offer i ng E E S -wea r appa rel—snea kers i n Na m ibia n nat iona l
colors, shirts, pants, and hats—and even an energy drink called Wuma.
W hite Nigerian engages in promotional activities (“Car wash with W hite
Nigerian”) and runs a nightclub in Abuja. Mzungu Kichaa has been able to
secure financial support from sponsors such as Swiss Air and World Music
Denmark, and has also experimented with crowd funding.
Trying to access audiences with more buying power is yet another op-
tion for the three musicians, and at least two of them, Mzungu Kichaa and
EES, are very active at internationalizing their careers and thus broaden-
ing their fan bases. Performing African music in Europe as a musician with
a European complexion comes with its own challenges, though. W hile
their skin color may work as an exotic signifier in African music markets, it
is not necessarily an advantage in Europe. W here “whiteness” constitutes
the norm, white performers of African music are considered “wannabe”
Africans, as they do not conform to the image of the exotic other. Mzungu
Kichaa discovered this early on when launching his career in Scandinavia
and Germany: “Some organizers of festivals have dropped me from their
list when they discovered that although I sing in Swahili, I am actually
a mzungu” (quoted in Banda 2010). According to him, it was the credit
given by diasporic Africans who came to his concerts that helped to au-
thenticate his music for European audiences (Sanga 2011). He has since
gained some recognition within the tiny margins of the world music scene.
In 2009, his album Tu k o Pa m o j a was nominated in the category of Best
World Album on the Danish World Music Awards in Copenhagen, and
since 2010 he has been featured regularly at music festivals in Scandinavia.
The fact that he has been f requently per forming together w ith Tanzanian
musicians—Ashimba, Fid-Q , and his backing band, Bongo Beat—on
European stages may have been equally important for raising his creden-
tials among European lovers of world music. His switch to English lyrics