Siti binti Saad (c. 1880–1950) was a pioneering Tanzanian musician from Zanzibar, often hailed as the "mother of taarab" music. Born as Mtumwa into a poor family in a time of slavery, she used her powerful voice to rise from selling pottery to performing for the Sultan and the Swahili elite. Her major innovation was to popularize taarab—a genre that traditionally used Arabic and was performed by educated men—by singing in Swahili and weaving social commentary and stories of everyday life into her music. In 1928, she made history as the first East African vocalist to make commercial gramophone recordings in Mumbai, India, cementing her legacy as a cultural icon, a voice for the common people, and an early advocate for women in a male-dominated industry.