african music

African Music

vast, diverse & ancient, infused in the people's community life

African Music

features strong rhythmic elements with short & simple melodies that are often repeated

African Music

additional highlights of African music are their drums

North African Music

clearly influenced by Arabic & Islamic tradition

African Music

found in the West, Central & Sub-Saharan regions of Africa

Afrobeat

described as the fusion of West African & Black American music.

Apala (Akpala)

used to wake up the worshipper after fasting during the Muslim holy feast of Ramadan.

Axe

a popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, & Brazil.

Jit

a hard & fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played on drums with guitar accompaniment.

Jive

a popular form of South African music featuring a lively & uninhibited variation of the Jitterbug.

Juju

a popular music style from Nigeria that relies on the traditional Yoruba rhythms.

Kwassa-Kwassa

dance style began in Zaire in the late 1980s & was popularized by Kanda Bongo Man.

Marabi

South African three-chord township music of the 1930s-1960s which evolved into African Jazz.

Blues

talks about oppression and other depressing subjects such as lost love; use of the call-and-response pattern that is also present in some spirituals.

Spiritual

also known as African-American spirituals or Negro-spirituals, were sung by the enslaved Africans while at work in plantation and sometimes during their secret meeting.

Idiophones

instruments that create sound through vibrating themselves.

Membranophones

emit sound by the vibration of a stretched membrane.

Lamellaphones

makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free.

Chordophones

a stretched, vibrating string produces the initial sound.

Aerophones

a vibrating mass of air produces the initial sound.