Dogo sillah

About Dogo Sillah

Hearing his voice over a stereo leaves you mesmerized. You later hear he goes by the name Dogo Sillah, a young but domineering artist in Tanzania’s Bongo music. The teenager’s musical journey is as inspiring as his craft is.

However, his songs are deep and flow with his unique Bongo rap. You couldn’t tell where or how he gets his deep lyrics for the songs that he does. But one thing is for sure! He got this art from his father, Baba Sillah aka Bongo Rider who is also an artist. From an early age, he enjoyed watching his father do music and the passion to be like him burned deep down that all he could do was give in. His father writes most of his songs since he was seven years old. But, his magic is that he has an innate ability to make this music relatable to most Tanzanians despite his young age.

As a young primary school-going lad, he already knew his way around the studio. He gave his studies the time they deserved but weekends were for studio sessions. Luckily, he got an acquaintance who owns a studio, Mega Town Records not far from his home where he recorded several hits including ‘Wamechokoza’. He then teamed up with like-minded musical buddies Fazo and Young Love and did ‘Rudi’. His favourite subjects then were Kiswahili, English and Maths.

His love for languages shaped his artistic career after clearing his primary school in 2016 and transitioning to secondary school in 2017. As the years progressed, he changed his stage name to Dogo Sillah from Dogo D which was his brand name while in primary school. When he looks back, the ‘Happy Birthday’ hitmaker’ can’t help but thank the people who invested in his talent. One of them is Filbet Kabago, a producer who saw this rare talent and all he wanted was to nurture it.

Kabago told Star TV that Sillah’s creative rap and his ability to give his songs a proper flow were excellent reasons to support the young star. Their friendship started when a young Dogo Sillah visited him with poor quality audio recordings from another studio. Kabago listened to the music and could tell that the young artist was talented but his producer then wasn’t and he would eventually let him down and crush his dreams. Working with Kabago changed a lot of things - including his academics and music quality.

Fast forward to 2020 just as he was completing his secondary school at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the new age Bongo rapper became a sensation in Tanzania. He made headlines for outrageous music controversies.

First, Dogo Sillah became the youngest artist to hold the most concerts in 2019 and early 2020. BASATA, an entertainment regulatory authority in Tanzania banned his music citing he was too young to be in the arts industry. However, he looks up to Aslay and Dogo Janja who are some of Tanzania’s biggest artists who started while very young. When he did a cover song of Diamond Platnumz’s ‘Baba Lao’, there was a lot of clout chasing talk in town. Nevertheless, he maintains that he was interested in growing his fan base by leaps and bounds and nothing more.

The teen musician believes in his craft and is confident that he will do much better in the future. He is still hopeful that he will pull a collaboration with Diamond in the near future.

Dogo Sillah Popular Songs

• Moyo
• Unadunda
• Ningesoma
• Zikufikie Mama
• Naongea Nawewe
• Toto Lao
• Nipishe Nipite
• Waah
• Kausha
• No Love
• Wamenichokoza
• Moyo Unadunda
• Nabii
• Tikisa
• Timua

Dogo Sillah Albums & EPs

• Kilio


Dogo Sillah songs and albums are online on Mdundo.com and are available for download in MP3.