Part 3: Regional Case
Studies
West Africa
West Africa: An Introduction
West Africa
Savannah
Forest
Savannah region
Savannah
Western Sudanic
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Central Sudanic
Voltaic
Savannah groups in contact with each other through
empires
Musico-cultural similarities throughout the Savannah
regions
Some influence from North Africa, Islam
Savannah regions – other general traits
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Social organization involved professional class of
musicians (i.e., griot, dyeli, jali)
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All classes of instruments, though some areas have
primarily membranophone instruments
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Contexts include:
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Ceremonial music
Praise singing
Religious rites
Forest Belt
Eastern Forest
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Western Forest
Far more differentiation, less homogeneity in forest belt
Secret societies important
Percussive instruments with complex rhythms predominant
musical trait
Elaborate traditions of court music and masquerade
Yoruba Popular Music
The Yoruba
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Live in Nigeria, Benin Republic, and Togo
Lagos center of Yoruba popular culture
Yoruba is a tonal language
Yoruba Popular Musical Identity
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The dùndún (talking drum) a symbol of panYoruba identity
Mixture of global and local
Instruments & ensembles organized with lead
(“mother”) and accompaniment, hierarchy
Instruments “speak”, like language
“Spraying” provides most income for popular
musicians
Muslim genres
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Wákà
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Sákárà
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Spiritual inspiration, female performers
Unaccompanied, hand-clapping
Instrument, genre, and dance style
Solemn, social dancing and praising
Àpàlà
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Lyrics are essentially praise songs
Social dance drumming style
Yoruba Highlife
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Ghanaian highlife bands performed in Lagos,
spread popularity
3-5 winds, string bass, guitar, bongos,
maracas, conga
Bobby Benson’s Jam Session Orchestra
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Worked in England
First electric guitar in Nigeria
1950s was Golden Age
Jùjú
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Emerged in early 1930s
Named for tambourine (jùjú)
Built on palm wine guitar music
Rhythm from dance drumming style
Trio (singer + banjo, tambourine, gourd rattle)
Jùjú – Early styles
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High tessitura, nasal style
Metaphorical lyrics
Tunde King
1940s changes included:
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Amplification
Expanded instruments, conga-type drums
Slower tempos
King Sunny Adé
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The Green Spot Band, 1966
Style modeled after Tunde Nightingale
Patron was Chief Bolarinwa Abioro
Known for skilled guitar playing
After 1972 split from Abioro, formed “African
Beats” band
Became a major international star
Afro-Beat
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Began in late ‘60s as mixture of highlife, jazz,
and soul
Basic style is 3 layers:
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Interlocking electric-bass and bass drum
Rhythm guitar, congas, snare back beat
Percussion sticks and gourd rattle, horn sections
supports singer
Fela Anikulapo Kuto, 1938 
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Studied trumpet in London
Played with Bobby Benson
Late 1960s influence of soul (from Geraldo
Pino)
Travel to US in 1969 led to more activism
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Run-ins with military, song lyrics political
Mother killed by military
Slogan was “Music is a Weapon”
Fújì
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Grew out of Muslim Ramadan tradition
Features drums
Syncretic style (highlife, American pop,
Muslim recitations, Christian hymns, jùjú)
"The Tradition" and Identity in a
Diversifying Context
Ivory Coast
Petit Gbapleu = (old Dan village)
City of Man =
(growing, modern city, primarily Muslim
Ivory Coast
Ge (genu=plural)
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An institution that serves as base of Dan
religious, social, and political life
Provides a sense of ethnic identity
Involves performance of forest spirits,
sometimes as masked dancers
Dan religion and Islam
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Many residents of Petit Gbapleu are Muslim,
do not believe in worship of two Gods
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But many still practice Dan, blend the two
(syncretic practice)
PDCI Party for the Hairdressers
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PDCI was leading political party at the time
Held a party for hairdressers, as political
move
Ge masked dancer performed, along with
master drummer
Ge and drummer incorporated popular music
elements, also non-local traditional elements
Creolization
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Karin Barber, Christopher Waterman
Creolization is what happens when “local
selectively ‘appropriate’ elements from
metropolitan cultures in order to ‘construct’
their own hybrid medium in which to articulate
their own, historically and socially specific,
experience.”
Creolization
Advantages of this theory:
1. People seen as active cultural producers
2. Something qualitatively new, not just dilution
or corruption of “authentic” forms
3. Function & significance determined by
specific new context
North Africa
North Africa
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Population consists of Arabs, Berbers,
Gnawa
Historic conquest by Romans, Scandinavian
tribes, Christian Byzantines, & Muslims
Cultural area includes Morocco, Tunisia,
Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, parts of Mali
and Niger
Arab-Andalusian Tradition
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Influence from Spain to Africa
Original repertoire was nuba (suite of songs)
Modal
Oral-poetic
Music and Islam
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Call to prayers, Koranic chant not considered
music
Religious songs during Ramadan
Sufi chants
Curing ceremonies
Music in folk life
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Annual, calendric celebrations
Life-cycle events
Professional musicians (griots)
Sung poetry
Instrumental music rare
Many forms of dance (even with camels)
Popular music
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Genres
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Tahardent
Rai
azri
Arab-Andalusian
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Arabi
Hawzi
Sha’bi
zendani
Tuareg Music
Tuareg
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Tuareg society consists of 8 large units or
confederations
Culturally diverse
Nomadic tribes
Music
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Mostly vocal, but various drums & flutes
Primary instruments are anzad, tende, and
tahardent
Prominent position in everyday life
Verbal genres highly esteemed
Dance includes camel dances
Anzad
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One-string lute-like instrument
Played only by women
Heroism, courage, love are subject matters
Solo instrument or vocal accompaniment
Many regional variations
Takes years to master
Tende
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Mortar drum
Central to camel festivals & curing
ceremonies
Not as much status
Tahardent
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3-stringed lute
Compositional formulas
Urban genre for entertainment
From Village to Vinyl:
Genealogies of New Kabyle Song
A vava inouva
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Algerian song by Idir, text by Ben Mohamed
Important for Kabyle Berbers
Based on traditional song
“internal gaze”
Authenticity vs. modernity
“Authenticity came from the Kabyles, modernity
could only come from the State.”
Internal Gaze
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Internal Gaze is accomplished by…..
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Stylization
Folkloric time
Process of story-telling put on display
Transmission
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Played in France, towards French audiences
Translated to many languages
Tapes & cassettes in Algeria
Transmission of the song made
Berber culture desirable
East Africa
East Africa – An Introduction
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Nomadic, semi-nomadic and settled groups
Indonesian influences
Arabic & Islamic influences
European influences
Music of Tanzania
Tanzania
1964
United Republic of Tanzania
Tanganyika
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Least urbanized African country
Mainly Bantu-speaking people
Swahili spoken w/English
Zanzibar
Music in Tanzania
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8 stylistic areas
Membranophones include royal drum sets
Untuned & tuned idiophones
Range of chordophones and aerophones
Forms (neotraditional)
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Beni ng’oma
Taraab
National training centers
Jazz
Music and the Construction of Identity
Among the Abayudaya (Jewish People)
of Uganda
Abayudaya Jews
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Converted to Judaism in 1920s, interruption
by Idi Amin, revival in 1980s
Only about 750 people in Eastern Uganda
Primarily 5 Bantu ethnic/language groups
Boundaries
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Boundary-leveling strategies for…
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Local ethnic groups
North American Jewry
Boundary-maintaining strategies for…
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Christian and Muslim neighbors
Boundary Maintaining Strategies
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Adding a Hebrew verse
Jewish leaders adapt local folk songs
Contemporary music contains Hebrew text,
subject matter
“Lekhah Dodi”
Hebrew pronunciation influenced by local
language
Central Africa
Central Africa
“Central Africa” is not a geographic
fact, but a concept
Central Africa
For this chapter defined as people speaking…
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Adamawa-Eastern languages
Bantu languages
Adamawa-Eastern language groups
Musical traits include:
 Tonal systems
 Part-singing
 Patterns of movement
 Instrumental resources
Bantu language groups
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Pygmy
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Yodeling
Polyphony
Several other diverse cultural groups
Musical Life in the Central African Republic
Music in Central African Republic
Performances of modernity = how people
situate themselves within a changing world
Performances of modernity
Zokela are “musicians who play and sing in a
vigorous style based on multiethnic rhythms,
harmonies, melodies, and topical themes
from the Lobaye
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Alleged origins in 1981
Now tending towards spectacle
Local → international
BaAka dances
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Mabo
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Rhythm is a triplet pattern
At least 2 drums accompany
Dingboku
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Women’s dance
Stand shoulder to shoulder in line
Both dances stopped because of Christian
missionary work, but later recontextualized
Southern Africa
Southern Africa
Politics, Economics, Languages, and cultural
traits all determine how to define “southern
Africa”
For this paper, includes southern tip up to the
Zambezi river
Southern Africa cultural groups
Much overlap in these groups……
 Khoisan (i.e., Khoikoi, San)
 Nguni (i.e, Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi)
 Sotho
 S.E. African (i.e., Shona, Venda, Chopi, Tsonga, Sena)
 Middle Zambezi (Lozi, Nyoka, Ila, Tonga)
 S.W. Bantu (Ovimbundu, Ovambo, Nkhumbi, Herero)
Indigenous music: Musical / Cultural traits
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Prominent use of polyrhythms
Linguistic influence on melody
Secondary sound source (rattling/buzzing)
Cyclic form
Drums, plucked lamellophones, xylophones,
musical bows
Music defined with metered rhythm
Indigenous music - Issues
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Tuning systems: reasons?
Influences: tonal-harmonic belt?
Influences: Indonesian?
Instruments: mbira origins?
Impact of Wider World
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Mining
Apartheid
Missions/Education
Sociopolitical Factors
Musical Instruments
Independence and international relations
Popular Music of South Africa
South Africa
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European, colonial influence early on
Led to large urban centers
Constant historic flux between village and
urban centers
Cape Town
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Slavery system developed early on
Mixed-race peoples
Birthplace of popular music industry in South
Africa
Neotraditional music/instruments
(i.e., ramkie)
Kimberley
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Diamond mines discovered
New genres developed
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Xhosa praise poetry
Basotho’s veteran migrant songs
Zulu men’s walking-and-courting song
Working-class, popular music developed
Black men learned that through music they
gained some status
Christian Religious Music
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First began to make an impact among Xhosa
people
Congregational singing appealed to blacks
New black South African choral style –
makwaya (choir)
Influence from the U.S.
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Blackface minstrelsy
African Methodist Episcopal church
Virginia Jubilee Singers
American ragtime and jazz
Johannesburg
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Gold mines discovered
Mixture of races, ethnicity, classes
Shebeen developed as informal place of
music-making
Marabi
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“Pianomen” began to emerge
In dance halls and shebeens, pianomen
devised various musical formulas
Four-bar progression ending on the
dominant: I-IV-I6/4-V7
Other instrumentalists also picked up on
marabi
Jazz
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Makwaya composers developed hybrid
compositions (Reuben T. Caluza)
Semi-professional song-and-dance companies
Jazz/ragtime bands modeled on American bands
Male close-harmony quartets
Kwela=street jazz appearing in 1940s
mbaqanga=jazz form that took its name from corn
porridge, known as “South Africa’s” jazz
Black show business & apartheid
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Many black musicians left
Mbaqanga jive created: electronic version of
mbaqanga, also reclaimed Zulu pride
(i.e., Indoda Mahlathini and Mahotella Queens)
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Township-jazz musical theater
Other groups/individuals of importance
included Malombo and Jonathan Clegg
Dance and Gender as Contested Sites in
Southern Malawian Presbyterian
Churches
“There’s a stranger at the door”
European/American hymn, but Malawian
performance style
(The only CCAP group whose performance style is this
way)
Growth of dance as form of worship
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Political changes of 60s
Blantyre synod programs of 70s
Scottish Presbyterian attitudes towards
dance/gender
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Scottish missionary work from late 19th c.
Discouraged dancing, esp. by women
Divided life into secular and sacred realms
Mvano groups educated women to be
Christian women
Rev. David Clement Scott, however, believed
in establishing “African church for the African
people”
Malawian cultural attitudes towards
dance/gender
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Elderly women passed on traditions to young
girls, often brewed beer, seen as “evil” by
missionaries
Women can be chiefs
Women often spiritual intermediaries
Acts of Resistance
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Some Malawians held secret dances
Peaceful march by Mvano women