The award winning Ras Nas aka Nasibu Mwanukuzi is a musician and poet from Tanzania living in Oslo, Norway. Ras Nas repertoire is a mixture of reggae and soukous (or rather, muziki wa dansi) with lyrics in both Kiswahili and English. The music is self composed as well as self arranged. Ras Nas’ line-up of musicians seasoned and international. Currently, his band comprises of musicians from Norway, Sweden, Ivory Coast, Congo Brazzaville and USA.

Among his merits is performing for Nelson Mandela and sharing the stage with musical heavyweights such as Van Morrison, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan as well as reggae legends like Linton Kwesi Johnson, I Jah Man and Eek a Mouse, to name but a few. Ras Nas has so far produced three critically acclaimed albums: Cut You Loose (1997), Dar-es-Salaam (2007) and Double Focus (2010). In 2010 he was awarded the Tanzania Red Carpet Award for best solo artist.

Ras Nas has participated in many prestigious festivals and has also toured extensively in Scandinavia. Among the festivals are the Spring Festival 2010 in Cairo and Beirut (Egypt and Lebanon), Norwegian Wood, Oslo World Music Festival, Lahore Performing Arts and Music Festival (Pakistan), Galle International Music Festival (Sri Lanka) and Oslo Mela Festival.

In addition to producing CDs, Ras Nas has also published a collection of poetry “Double Focus” and some of his tracks have appeared in international compilations. One of his poems “Mandela” is used in an educational DVD for High School students in USA and several others have been published in anthologies and magazines around the world.