Traditional Music of Africa
Largely functional in nature, used primarily in ceremonial
rites, such as birth, death, marriage, succession, worship,
and spirit invocations. Others are work-related or social in
nature, while many traditional societies view their music as
entertainment.
STYLES AND GENRES
Afrobeat
- Term used to describe the fusion of West African with black
American music.
Apala ( Akpala )
- Music genre from Nigeria in the Yoruba tribal style, used to
wake up the worshippers after fasting during the Muslim holy
feast of Ramadan. Percussion instrumentation includes the
rattle (sekere), thumb piano (agidigbo), bell (agogo),
and two or three talking drums.
Yoruba apala musicians
Axe
- Popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil. It
fuses Afro-Caribbean styles of the such as marcha, reggae,
and calypso, and is played by carnival bands.
Jit
- Hard and fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played
on drums with guitar accompaniment, influenced by mbira-
based guitar styles.
Jive
- Popular form of South African music featuring a lively and
uninhibited variation of the jitterbug, a form of swing dance.
Juju
- Popular music style from Nigeria that relies on the traditional
Yoruba rhythms, where the instruments are more Western in
origin. A drum or keyboard, pedal steel guitar, and accordion
are used along with the traditional dun-dun (talking drum
or squeeze drum).
Kwassa kwassa
- Dance style begun in Zaire in the late 1980s, popularized by
Kanda Bongo Man. In this dance style, the hips move back
and forth while the arms follow the hip movements.
Marabi
- South African three-chord township music of the 1930s-
1960s which evolved into African jazz. It makes use of a
keyboard style that combines American jazz, ragtime, and
blues with African roots. It is characterized by simple chords
in varying vamping patterns and repetitive harmony over an
extended period of time to allow the dancers more time on
the dance floor.
