Who we are

Marafiki Music Festival is the fastest growing East Africa live music festival that brings local and international artists to showcase their music (100% live), offer music education via professional workshop training, celebrate culture diversity and connect through music.

Marafiki Festival is an international stage standing for live music intended to reflect as a platform that focuses in social and economic activities development aspects, generating direct benefits in community economy activities, by creating a meeting point of arts stakeholders, international and local community artists, in Tanzania. The word MARAFIKI mean ‘’FRIENDS’’ in Swahili idiom.

Marafiki Festival brings artists both local and international, in exploring new artistic boundaries through the provision of a conducive atmosphere for talent identification, through various platforms such as, auditions, intensive music training workshops, seminar/symposium, networking and performances.

The MARAFIKI project is set to find and build on dialogues in the music sector through a process of investigation and use of unlimited experimentations in the different contexts of inter-/intra-cultural significance. The artists working with diverse subject matters of perceptions, movement, multiple Codes, community values and aesthetics, will generate transformation of new creation and exchange alternatives.

Marafiki Festiva is organized by ASEDEVA, ASEDEVA is a non-profit arts organization working in Tanzania, with the aim to organize art and cultural projects, as well as performances and trainings workshops. These events benefit local artists and groups, and the Tanzanian performing arts community as a whole.

ASEDEVA aims to build the capacity of the community to be able to engage in solving their own social issues through the creative industry. We believe in the power of the creative arts to be a force for positive change. ASEDEVA is legally registered as Non Profit Organization at Ministry of home affairs, as well register at BRELA (Business Registrations and Licensing Agency) and BASATA (National Arts Council) in Tanzania.