The history of Tinga Tinga art goes back to 1960s when a well renowned painter Edward S. Tinga Tinga, established an art form that became connected with his new homeland, Tanzania. Today, Tinga Tinga is the Tanzanian expression for this form of art, acknowledged mostly in Tanzania, Kenya, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Over the years, acquaintance about Tinga Tinga has extended to other parts of Africa and Europe, along with other English-speaking parts of the world. Tinga Tinga is a notion that development support workers and African tourists alike have been drawn to, but which, over time, has lost its individuality. In the past, Tinga Tinga art could be advertised on its name alone, but increasingly other works of art are being accessible as Tinga Tinga as well.

From a solely technical standpoint, Tinga Tinga art can be described as painting on masonite using bicycle paint. The paintings can be as minute as ceramic tiles, while the largest paintings are no doubt hanging above thousands of family room sofas. Market restrictions have prevented artists from working in larger formats. A mainstream of the buyers have been foreigners wanting to convey the images out of the country by airplane. From that viewpoint, Tinga Tinga is an authentic form of airport art - cultural art from developing nations that has been modified to the special requirements of long-distance travelers, including size. The choice of motives in the Tinga Tinga art has often been tailored to the purchaser’s expectations of what should be included in the African painting.

The heart of Tinga Tinga art is centered on coastal east African design, where the attractive vines and patterns of the Swahili culture cover defined spaces that are never permitted to remain completely unfilled. But there is a clash in Tinga Tinga art, especially when one looks at how it has been developed by the followers of the artist who gave it his name. There is a conflict or an encounter of two or three of the world's leading art expressions. It was Tingatinga's successors, who developed the decorative vein of Tinga Tinga painting, while the artist himself painted "the big five" and other motifs that were not at all based on the decorative art idiom.

"The big five" was a central idea of art and handicrafts from southern and eastern Africa, signifying the usual, large animals on the continent: elephant, lion, giraffe, hippopotamus and antelope (or ox). By filling surfaces as completely as possible, the Tinga Tinga artists often use motifs as if they were a part of Swahili tradition anyway. Animal figures are drawn so that they in their entirety fit into the frame of masonite, or two animals are decoratively placed next to each other, as if they were entangled calligraphy letters from an old Nordic textile design - or, rather, a collection out of an artistically turned into, beautiful Arabic Koran verse. Many Tinga Tinga paintings exemplify both the origins of and the meeting between east and west in eastern Africa. The term Tinga Tinga has been enlarged and is now used to portray many different types of colorful paintings. The term is used to offer artistic legitimacy, even if the genesis of the artwork is something other than from Tinga Tinga and his immediate circle.