Kurbanali Rashid Adat Dewji

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Kurban, my father, was educated at the St Joseph’s Convent School, Bombay until he was 13 years of age when his family moved to Dar es Salaam. To maintain continuity, his father decided to send him to the St. Joseph’s School in Dar es Salaam.
His father started a piece goods business and was importing matches, oil and ghee from India as well a few items from Europe.
But Kurban's education was short lived. Within a few years, his father died suddenly of a heart attack after hearing about the death of one of his sons in Bombay and Kurban had to quit school to work in the family business. But the business did not last long after his father’s death and Kurban started his own business.
He continued to do business for several decades but his first love was music. As a singer, he was self-taught and he also learnt Urdu so he could sing and compose shairi (poetry) for which he was famous in Dar es Salaam. During the 60’s Kurban Bhai became well-known across East Africa as the leader of KURBAN & PARTY, a musical group based out of Dar es Salaam that went on many singing tours.
This group went down in history as the first to sing ginans (devotional poetry) to full orchestration...........

By:Shahida Sakaria