afro-latin american music

* African music is one of the most influential styles of music in the world. It has greatly influenced the music of Contemporary America, Latin America, and European music. Its highly energetic and rhythmically challenging beats are quiet universal. Jazz, Gospel, and Spiritual, and Rhythm and Blues (RnB) are genres of music that have deep roots to African music.

Traditional Music of Africa

* African traditional music is mainly functional in nature which is used primarily in ceremonial rites, such as birth, death, marriage, succesions, worship, and spirit invocations. Others are work related or social in nature, while many traditional societies view their music as a form of entertainment.

Some Types of African Music

*Afrobeat - It is a term used to describe the fusion of West African with Black American music.

*Apala (Akpala) - It us musical genre from Nigeria un the Yoruba tribal style to wake up the worshippers after fasting during the Muslim holy feast of Ramadan.

*Axe - It is popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil. It fuses the Afro-Caribbean style of marcha, reggae, and calypso.

*Jit - It is hard and fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played on drums with guitar accompaniment influenced by mbira-based guitar styles.

*Jive - It is a popular form of South African music featuring a lively and uninhibited variation of the jitterbug, a form of swing dance.

*Juju - It is a popular music style from Nigeria that relies on the traditional Yoruba rhythms. A drum kit, keyboard, pedal steel guitar, and accordion are used along with the traditional dun-dun talking drum or squeeze drum).

*Kwassa Kwassa - It is a music style that begunin Zaire in the late 1980’s popularized by Kanda Bongo Man. In this dance style, the hips move back and forth while the arms move following the hips.

*Marabi - It is a South African three-chord township music of the 1930’s-1960’s which evolved into African Jazz. It is characterized by simple chords in varying vamping patternsand repetitive harmony over an extended period.

African - American Music

* For the African people, music is like their spiritual food. Music is found in their dances, religious practices, abd even in their stories of everyday life.

* African drums expresses the mood of the people. It is considered the “heartbeat of the community” which holds dancers together. The talking drum is used for communication, such as alarming tribes when war iis coming. Rain sticks were believed to attract water during dry seasons.

* African people use costumes, body paints, and props to go with their instruments. Their music includes the following themes: child’s birth, initiation rites, activities like hunting or agriculture-related, ceremonies for death rituals, and warding off evil spirits to paying respects to good spirits.

What is Maracatu?

* Maracatu is the ceremony of the Coronation of the Black Kings in 1674 in Recife. This coronation of a king in Congo when the Portuguese were still ruling government in Brazil was about dedicating a king who will represent the African slaves to their masters. Each king is a representative of a nation or tribe. This designation of the king is called Maracatu Nacao.

Characteristics of Afro-Latin American Music

*Conversation “Call and Response”

- a performance of voice interaction as an answer to the first chant.

*Spirituals

- “Negro Spirituals” were passed down orally from generations of slavery.

Dance

- In African dance, gestures communicate significant meanings. Some of these examples are pointing and looking to the found that pertains to the earth. The Africans continued to dance to keep their traditions and connect with their home country.

Blues

- A genre of African-American “Jam”. It originated from the deep south of the US where most of the African slaves entered the country.

Soul

- This kind of music combines the basic rhythm and blues and gospel music which was popularized by the African-Americans.

Gospel Music

- Emerging from African-American churches in Memphis, Tennessee, Gospel music evolved from Soul.

The choir’s vocal harmony was dominant in Gospel singing. They sing joyful, upbeat songs while clapping and moving to the beat; at the same time, slower music is like a prayer, a song yearning for God’s love.