African Music: Overview, Styles, and Vocal Forms

Objectives

  • Define African music
  • Give and discuss the types of African music, vocal forms, and musical instruments
  • Listen prospectively to the types of African music, vocal forms, and instruments
  • Apply the African music style by making improvised vocal-instrumental accompaniment to selected songs
  • Appreciate the beauty of African music using knowledge of musical elements and style

What is African Music?

  • African music is a rich and diverse cultural heritage that exists in hundreds of languages.
  • Techniques: call and response (a person leads by singing a praise and is followed and answered by a group of singers).
  • Performance often involves singing and percussion (played by hand or with sticks, drums, etc.).
  • Music is used to convey news, teach, tell stories, and for religious purposes.
  • Historical and cultural background: singing, dancing, hand clapping, and drumming are essential to many ceremonies (birth, death, initiation, marriage, funerals), religious expression, and political events.
  • Influences: African music has greatly influenced global music, including contemporary American, Latin American, and European styles.

Traditional Music of Africa

  • African traditional music is mainly functional, used in ceremonial rites (birth, death, marriage, succession, worship, spirit invocations).
  • Other contexts include work-related or social activities; many traditional societies view music as a form of entertainment.

Types of African Music

  • Afrobeat: fusion of Western African with Black African American music.
  • West African music categories: Islamic music and indigenous secular music.
  • African American music (umbrella term): a diverse range of genres developed largely by African Americans, including Rock and Roll, Country, Funk, Jazz, Rap, Blues, Hip Hop, Rhythm and Blues. This is presented as an example of upper beat music.
  • Apala or Akpala: a Nigerian musical genre in the Yoruba style, used to wake worshippers after fasting during Ramadan. The Yoruba are a West African ethnic group mainly in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo; the Yoruba population is reported as more than 48{,}000{,}000 people.
  • Axé: popular music from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil; fuses Afro-Caribbean styles of Marcha, Reggae, and Calypso.
  • Calypso: influenced by African drums, percussion, and call-and-response invocations; simple harmonies and acoustic/bass guitar textures reflect European influence.
  • Reggae: a variation of ska, combining elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and R&B, emerging in the 1960s in Jamaica. This is presented as an example of Afri-leaning music influence.
  • JIT: a hard and fast Zimbabwean percussion-dominated dance music played on drums with guitar accompaniment, influenced by Mbira-based guitar styles. Mbira is a family of instruments traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe, consisting of a wooden board with attached staggered metal tines played by thumbs and fingers; it is classified as a lamellophone, part of the plucked idiophone family.
  • Jive (often tied to Jitterbug): a lively variation of the Jitterbug, a swing dance; originally a term used to describe fast dance, later adopting more upbeat and expansive connotations.
  • Juju: a popular music style from Nigeria relying on traditional Yoruba rhythms; uses a drum kit, keyboard, pedal steel guitar, and accordion along with traditional dundun drums; Yoruba music is notable for its advanced rhyming tradition.
  • Kwasa Kwasa: a music/dance style that began in Sire (likely a reference to Congo) in the late 1980{-}s and was popularized by Tanda Bongo Man; distinctive hip movements with arm coordination; Tanda Bongo Man emerged as a singer for Orchestra Bell Mambo in 1973 and drew on Tabou Léon influence.
  • Marabi: South African three-chord township music of the 1930{-}sixties that evolved into African jazz; characterized by simple chords, varied bumping patterns, and repetitive harmonies over extended periods; notable for a vibrant early jazz scene in South Africa, including imitators of popular artists when the real musician wasn’t present.

Vocal Forms of African Music

  • Marakatu: strong rhythms from African percussion paired with Portuguese melodies; performed along streets by up to 100 participants.
  • Blues: a late 19^{th}-century vocal form, expressive and soulful; developed among enslaved people and their descendants while working in the fields.
  • Soul: popular in the 1950{-}1960s, originating in the African American community in the United States; blends elements of African American gospel, rhythm and blues, and open jazz. Example: "Cry to Me" written by Bert Burns; first recorded by Solomon Burke in 1961, released in 1962, charted on Hot 100 and R&B.
  • Spiritual: originated in the United States, created by African American slaves; also known as Negro spirituals; example: "I’d be so glad when the sun goes down" (prison song performed by Ed Lewis).
  • Call and Response: a question-and-answer structure in human communication; slaves sang these while performing daily tasks.

Closing notes

  • For additional information, refer to Part Two: Musical Instruments of Africa.
  • Summary takeaway: African music is multimodal, functionally oriented, and deeply interconnected with social, religious, and political life, influencing a wide range of global music styles.