Music of Africa

Transcending individual differences, music in Africa has proved to be more than just a collection of notes and the production of sounds. Throughout this past semester, Professor B drew materials from West, East and South Africa to demonstrate the powerful ability of music to bring and bind people together. Consistently exemplified throughout African history, music has served as the unifying link between generations. In the documentary, Inanga: A Song of Survival in Daughter’s Rwanda, a family’s

culture that most people associate with South Africa is without a doubt the native black culture. Their culture is well known for it’s art, dance and music, because of its rich colors and rhythm. South Africa has a rich musical heritage with both older folk and popular new forms. Their music industry is strongly influenced by European music styles, as a result of the colonization. The music genre that’s leading the modern music industry in South Africa is Kawito. The genre developed in the 1980s

their music. For example, Mali and Paraguay seem to not have much in common. Both of them, however, passionately integrate music as a part of their culture. Mali is a country that exists in northern Africa and is the eighth largest country in Africa (People & Our Culture). It is home to about fourteen

Africa, a continent rich in culture and diversity, sets the base of my cultural lecture. Being filled with many distinct yet close bonded countries in which have different yet similar sounds musically, paved the way and has had its impartation of our music today. Coming from an African background, I thought it would only be proper for me to focus more in on my roots. For centuries now African music has been commended to not only having dissecting beats and rhythms, but to also have spiritual ties

Having origins in slave trade of the Muslim Empire that conquered North Africa, are the Gnawa people. Located in Morocco, the Gnawa are an ethnic group that is a product of their ancestors that have come before them. Their culture is a hyprid of their West-African heritage, North-African surroundings, and Islamic faith. Their spritualism and animism has its roots in West-African traditional religions. Another use of the tern “Gnawa” refers to the people of Morocco that participate in the musical

The Music of Africa You’ve Got Rhythm Sub-Saharan Africa Geography and Brief History of Sub-Saharan Africa Introduction to the Region • • • • Many Africans reckon the bonds of family laterally and linearly One village may have a genealogy of a common ancestor Professional caste of musicians memorize these genealogies and recite them in song Each musical instrument has a spirit of it own. Introduction to the Region: Polyrhythm • • The most distinctive of traditional African

The piece Touraman contains key structural principles associated with West African music despite the different versions of Bembeya Jazz National and Lansana Diabate. The structural principles include an ostinato pattern, improvisation, triple meter, ensemble stratification, and hocketing. In the Bembeya version, the piece starts with a guitar flourish and then the test of the band comes in. The bass is keeping the ostinato while the guitars interlock and at certain points improvise; the trumpet improvises

focuses on a legend folk music star, Sixto Rudriguez, who is more popular than Elvis in South Africa but fails to gain fame in the United States. He knows nothing about his fame in South Africa and has no idea how he is deified there. The whole story is told in a linear way to present a dramatic journey of finding Rudriguez. It is not followed an old-fashioned “rough start-road to success-dream come true” style (Ning). It is a display of two parallel worlds of a legend music hermit. An artist who regards

didn’t expect to keep creating music after arriving in Whitewater. After all, he arrived in Whitewater about two weeks before Fall semester 2016 and didn’t know anyone. A year later, Musunka who also goes by his artist name Mellow, has a great network of friends and has seen his first music success. In early 2017 he released his “No Love” single along with a music video that has now been featured on TV channel TRACE Africa. “I never really thought of taking music serious when I got here. I knew

On June 19, 1890 South Africans came into contact with African American music for the first time. This contact came when Orpheus McAdoo’s Virginia Jubilee Singers. Orpheus McAdoo, a graduate of Hampton Institute, now known as Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia joined five members of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, an African American a capella group from Fisk University and began to tour places such as Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. When he returned to the U.S., he added four members