The real name of Ras Pompidou is Benick Pompidou Dominick. He introduces himself:
I am Ragga Master here for this country, because I'm the one who started to play this style here. A lot of people wondered what is the style this guy is playing. They don't know that this style come from Africa, from tradition. Long time ago the soldiers were using this when they were doing the parade using the local weapons. Ragamuffin is a thing which can build confidence in someone.

Ras Pampidou started to listen to a lot of music as a child. His father wanted his children to stay in the house. There was nothing to do but listen to his father's records: ABBA, Boney M, BeeGees, but also Bob Marley, Eddie Grant, Peter Tosh and Black Uhuru. In 1986, while still in school, he started a band that played reggae, but also Zairean rumba.

Today his favourite is Shabba Ranks:
I like how he do it on the stage. You know when you go on the stage you have to rule. Jumping, singing to make people crazy. You know that me a-like. That's why I like Shabba Ranks.

He doesn't have a regular band. But this is how he goes about it:
There is a concert with reggae. What we are doing we are going back to the instrument players. We collect them together and start to practise. We make a schedule and rehearse together. What we are doing, the bassist, we give him the notes, we are looking for the hard parts in the music and you record it on a tape and give to the drummer and the keyboardist to listen. The time when they come the thing is simple. We rehearse and rehearse and at the time of the concert we perform nice and well.

Ras Pompidou performs ragga both in English and Swahili. But he became a ragga man partly by accident:
It was not my aim to perform ragga. It was a reggae night at the YMCA. I composed one song of ragamuffin, you see. And after the performance people were crazy. The brothers came to me and said: "Change you style, play this style. This style is fit for you." All my songs are not ragga. There are just songs and reggae.

He is one of the few Tanzanians who have performed abroad in Reunion, Mallorca, Kenya and Uganda.

Here two samples of Ras Pompidou:

• Karibu Tanzania (Wellcome to Tanzania, .wav format 870 kB) which is a version of a wellknown song.
• Amani (Peace, .wav format 680 kB).