Some Types of African Music

Afrobeat
Afrobeat is a term used to describe the fusion of West African with black American music.
Yoruba Apala Musicians

Axe
Axe is a popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil. It fuses the Afro-Caribbea
n styles of the marcha, reggae, and calypso.
Jit

Jit is a hard and fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played on drums with guitar ac
companiment, influenced by mbira-based guitar styles.
Jive
Jive is a popular form of South African music featuring a lively and uninhibited variation of
the jitterbug, a form of swing dance.
Juju
Juju is a popular music style from Nigeria that relies on the traditional Yoruba rhythms, w
here the instruments in Juju are more Western in origin. A drum kit, keyboard, pedal steel
guitar, and accordion are used along with the traditional dun-dun (talking drum or squee
ze drum).
Kwassa Kwassa

Kwassa Kwassa is a dance style begun in Zaire in the late 1980’s, popularized by Kanda B
ongo Man. In this dance style, the hips move back and forth while the arms move followi
ng the hips.
Marabi
Marabi is a South African three-chord township music of the 1930s-1960s which evolved int
o African Jazz. Possessing a keyboard style combining
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.
LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC

Reggae

Reggae is a Jamaican sound dominated by bass guitar and drums. It refers to a particular
music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento and calypso music, as well as
American jazz, and rhythm and blues. The most recognizable musical elements of reggae
are
its offbeat rhythm and staccato chords.
Salsa
Salsa music is Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Colombian dance music. It comprises various musi
cal genres including the Cuban son montuno, guaracha, chachacha, mambo and bolero.
Samba
Samba is the basic underlying rhythm that typifies most Brazilian music. It is a lively and r
hythmical dance and music with three steps to every bar, making the Samba feel like a ti
med dance. There is a set of dances—rather than a single dance—that define the Samba
dancing scene in Brazil. Thus, no one dance can be claimed with certainty as the “original”
Samba style.
Soca

Soca is a modern Trinidadian and Tobago pop music combining “soul” and “calypso” musi
c.
Were
This is Muslim music performed often as a wake-up call for early breakfast and prayers du
ring Ramadan celebrations. Relying on pre-arranged music, it fuses the African and Europe
an music styles with particular usage of the natural harmonic series.
Zouk
Zouk is fast, carnival-like hythmic music, from the Creole slang word for ‘party,’ originating
in the Carribean Islands of Guadaloupe and Martinique and popularized in the 1980’s. It h
as a pulsating beat supplied by the gwo ka and tambour bele drums, a tibwa rhythmic pa
ttern played on the rim of the snare drum and its hi-hat, rhythm guitar, a horn section, a
nd keyboard synthesizers.
VOCAL FORMS OF AFRICAN MUSIC

Maracatu
Maracatu first surfaced in the African state of Pernambuco, combining the strong rhythms
of
African percussion instruments with Portuguese melodies. The maracatu groups were calle “
nacoes” (nations) who paraded with a drumming ensemble numbering up to 100, accompa
nied by a singer, chorus, and a coterie of dancers.
Musical instruments used in
Maracatu
The Maracatu uses mostly percussion instruments such as the alfaia, tarol and caixa-de-
guerra, gongue, agbe, and miniero. The alfaia is a large wooden drum that is rope-tuned,
complemented by the tarol which

is a shallow snare drum and the caixa-de-guerra which is a war-like snare. Providing the
clanging sound is the gongue, a metal cowbell. The shakers are represented by the agbe,
a gourd shaker covered by beads, and the miniero or ganza, a metal cylindrical shaker
filled with metal shot or small dried seeds called “Lagrima fre Nossa Senhora.”
Maracatu dance
Alfaia Drum Agbe Sakere
Caixa Miniero or Ganza Gongue
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF AFRICA

African music includes all the major instrumental genres of western music, including strings,
winds, and percussion, along with a tremendous variety of specific African musical instrum
ents for solo or ensemble playing.
Classification of Traditional African Instruments

A. Idiophones
These are percussion instruments that are either struck with a mallet or against
one another.

1. Balafon - The balafon is a West African xylophone. It is a pitched percussion instrument

with bars made from logs or bamboo. The xylophone is originally an Asian instrument that
follows the structure of a piano. It came from Madagascar to Africa, then to the America
s and Europe.
2. Rattles - Rattles are made of seashells, tin, basketry, animal hoofs, horn, wood, metal be
lls, cocoons, palm kernels, or tortoise shells. These rattling vessels may range from single t
o several objects that are either joined or suspended in such a way as they hit each other
.
3. Agogo - The agogo is a single bell or multiple bells that had its origins in traditional Y
oruba music and also in the samba baterias (percussion) ensembles. The agogo may be ca
lled “the oldest samba instrument based on West African Yoruba single or double bells.” It
has the highest pitch of any of the bateria instruments.
4. Atingting Kon - These are slit gongs used to communicate between villages. They were
carved out of wood to resemble ancestors and had a “slit opening” at the bottom. In cert
ain cases, their sound could carry for miles through the forest and even across water to n
eighboring islands. A series of gong “languages” were composed of beats and pauses, ma
king it possible to send highly specific messages.

5. Slit drum - The slit drum is a hollow percussion instrument. Although known as a drum,
it is not a true drum but is an idiophone. It is usually carved or constructed from bambo
o or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit, th
ough two and three slits (cut into the shape of an “H”) occur. If the resultant tongues are
different in width or thicknesses, the drum will produce two different pitches.
6. Djembe - The West Africandjembe (pronounced zhem-bay) is one of the best-known Af
rican drums is. It is shaped like a large goblet and played with bare hands. The body is c
arved from a hollowed trunk and is covered in goat skin.
Log drums come in different shapes and sizes as well: tubular drums, bowl-shaped drums,
and friction drums. Some have one head, others have two heads. The bigger the drum, th
e lower the tone or pitch. The more tension in the drum head, the higher the tone produ
ced. These drums are played using hands or sticks or both; and sometimes have rattling
metal and jingles attached to the outside or seeds and beads placed inside the drum. The
y are sometimes held under the armpit or with a sling.
7. Shekere - The shekere is a type of gourd and shell megaphonefrom West Africa, consis
ting of a dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering the gourd. Theagbe is anothe
r gourd drum with cowrie shells usually strung with white cotton thread. The axatse is a s
mall gourd, held by the neck and placed between hand and leg.
8. Rasp - A rasp, or scraper, is a hand percussion instrument whose sound is produced by
scraping the notches on a piece of wood (sometimes elaborately carved) with a stick, cre
ating a series of rattling effects.
Gourd shekere

5. Slit drum - The slit drum is a hollow percussion instrument. Although known as a drum,
it is not a true drum but is an idiophone. It is usually carved or constructed from bambo
o or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit, th
ough two and three slits (cut into the shape of an “H”) occur. If the resultant tongues are
different in width or thicknesses, the drum will produce two different pitches.

6. Djembe - The West Africandjembe (pronounced zhem-bay) is one of the best-known Af

rican drums is. It is shaped like a large goblet and played with bare hands. The body is c
arved from a hollowed trunk and is covered in goat skin. Log drums come in different sh
apes and sizes as well: tubular drums, bowl-shaped drums, and friction drums. Some have
one head, others have two heads. The bigger the drum, the lower the tone or pitch. The
more tension in the drum head, the higher the tone produced. These drums are played u
sing hands or sticks or both; and sometimes have rattling metal and jingles attached to th
e outside or seeds and beads placed inside the drum. They are sometimes held under the
armpit or with a sling.
Antique wooden rasp