Igbo Music : The Context And Culture Of Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe uses the story of Okonkwo to let the world know more about Igbo culture. In an interview,Achebe says, ¨I began going to school and learned to read¨(Brooks). Food is also important in the Igbo culture and use it in very traditional and ceremonial events. For example some foods that are important are palm wine and kola nuts and these foods are very important to the Igbo culture and they use it to show respect for their clansmen and the honor the gods.

The Igbo people portray they are civil by having gender roles and a justice system, but they also could be mistakenly considered uncivilized because of their unjustified religious superstitions. In order for a society to be civil they need to have civilized characteristics; this includes being financially independent, organized, concerned with citizens needs. The Igbo people have one bad characteristic that could make a person think they are a uncivilized group, but no society is perfect. The Ibo society runs smoothly and efficiently making the Ibo culture

1. In traditional Ibo culture, women are not treated as equals and are equivalent to possessions. In a family, the children always belong to the father, not the mother. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family” (74). Okonkwo appears appalled to this blasphemy. It is common and ideal for a husband to possess multiple wives, and men beat their wives for even the smallest infractions. During the Week of Peace, the goddess forbids wife beating, such as when Okonkwo beat Ojiugo. “And when she returned he beat her very heavily …It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week” (29-30). To live in a culture with so many threats to them, women are required to be mentally and emotionally

Many may know that it can be almost impossible to completely identify what African Dance is. Africa is a huge continent that holds many different cultures, beliefs and overall ways of living. It is said to be the most “socially and racially diverse on the planet (wikipedia).” Even though Africa can be one of the most diverse places on earth, there can be similar dance styles being established throughout many other larges countries. Creativecareerguice.com states that “history, language, song, background, and purpose and cannot be translated to another dance of the same culture much less another

1. How do the principal musical manifestations found in the sub-Saharan Africa reflect the collective community and encourage group participations?

The African beats, the wind instruments and the rhythms that have been passed down through the

African influence is evident in African secular and religious practices, in instruments modeled after African instruments, and in the use of musical traits associated with Africa’s ethnic groups.

Africans create their own music, and what I mean when I say they create their music is they provide their own instruments. They mainly consist of drums, flutes, rattles and bells. Trumpets and xylophones may also be used, but those are only used “depending on what is available in their given area”( Nketia, 92). Every region is different, especially when there is so little they can

African music is deeply rooted in the typically polyrhythmic music of the ethnic groups of

African American music has evolved into unique musical tradition, reflecting the experiences of Africans in the New World. This musical tradition, however, has been influenced by African cultural patterns in profound and subtle ways. To define such a broad genre is a difficult task, as African music is not a static system of notes and beats, but rather it is a conceptual approach to music making. There are, nonetheless, a set of common basic elements that help define the genre. African music in terms of spirituality, community, and language have influenced African American music profoundly. Musical organization and syntax can be traced directly to sub-Saharan peoples in terms of cyclical

Music in the western society is viewed as a separate commodity. Although American music attempts to convey messages and make changes in the society, it is not a highly essential part of their lives. On the other hand, African music is a natural expression of the identity and social values of people in Africa. Music is a cultural activity within the African communities that help people live together and communicate the major values of their social units. It is a tool that explains their existences and adds meaning to their lives.

The Igbo community is developed because they have fair ideology practice. For example, when Okonkwo shot his gun on accident and hit Ezeudu's son who’s father the clan was burying it says “The only course of action was to flee from

In this essay, I will be examining the musical genre of Afrobeat which was created by Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Afrobeat first came to be in the late 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement in America. Fela Kuti a Nigerian, was able to create a genre that has change the way we view music today. Afrobeat is made up of two different words, “Afro” and “Beat”. “Afro” correlates with “African organized sound while beat is a rhythmic counting pattern in relation to such music” (Oikelome, 2013). Therefore, the meaning of Afrobeat is the unique African rhythmic patterns of such music. The coming of this genre is very interesting since the man behind it has quite a story.

In this course we have learned about all of the different cultures and their musical traditions. My favorite so far has had to be the west African music culture. They have a variety of different music, instruments, and dances to contribute to the reasons I liked this music culture so much. So, I have taken it upon myself to further my research on this particular musical group. I will compare and contrast a variety of different videos from the west African music culture and I will analyze how they connect to this culture.

Scholars have attempted to define music, and to be quite honest, it will be a huge challenge to try to weave a definition around the art that is music, because it is beyond definition. However, for the purposes of this work, we shall adopt the definition by Aluede & Eregare (2009), not because the definition is, in itself, complete, but because it captures the very essence of what we look for in the definition of music. Music, according to Aluede & Aregare (2009), is not only an organization of sound but also a symbolic expression of a social and cultural organization, which reflects the values, past and present ways of life of human beings. Also, Jones (1975), cited in Amana and Onogu (2015), defines music as “a language which encodes emotions, aspirations and people’s goals in autonomous and self-expressive arts forms.” These definitions are important in understanding music, because they highlight the fact that music does not only appeal to the feel-good emotion, it is not only used for entertainment; it is a valid form of social expression and this underscores the centrality of music in African socio-cultural life.