Sub-Saharan African music traditions

A Mangbetu man playing an African harp

Sub-Saharan African music traditions exhibit so many common features that they may in some respects be thought of as constituting a single musical system.[1] While some African music is clearly contemporary-popular music and some is art-music, still a great deal is communal and orally transmitted while still qualifying as a religious or courtly genre.

Music and dance in sub-Saharan societies

Drumming and dancing at Dakawa, Morogoro, Tanzania

In many parts of Africa the use of music is not limited to entertainment: it serves a purpose to the local community and helps in the conduct of daily routines. Traditional African music supplies appropriate music and dance for work and for religious ceremonies of birth, naming, rites of passage, marriage and funerals.[2] The beats and sounds of the drum are used in communication as well as in cultural expression.[3]

African dances are largely participatory: there are traditionally no barriers between dancers and onlookers except with regard to spiritual, religious and initiation dances. Even ritual dances often have a time when spectators participate.[4] Dances help people work, mature, praise or criticize members of the community, celebrate festivals and funerals, compete, recite history, proverbs and poetry and encounter gods.[5] They inculcate social patterns and values. Many dances are performed by only males or females.[6] Dances are often segregated by gender, reinforcing gender roles in children. Community structures such as kinship, age, and status are also often reinforced.[7] To share rhythm is to form a group consciousness, to entrain with one another,[8] to be part of the collective rhythm of life to which all are invited to contribute.[9]

African ethnic groups

Yoruba dancers and drummers, for instance, express communal desires, values, and collective creativity. The drumming represents an underlying linguistic text that guides the dancing performance, allowing linguistic meaning to be expressed non-verbally. The spontaneity of these performances should not be confused with an improvisation that emphasizes the individual ego. The drummer's primary duty is to preserve the community.[10] Master dancers and drummers are particular about the learning of the dance exactly as taught. Children must learn the dance exactly as taught without variation. Improvisation or a new variation comes only after mastering the dance, performing, and receiving the appreciation of spectators and the sanction of village elders.[11]

The music of the Luo, for another example, is functional, used for ceremonial, religious, political or incidental purposes, during funerals (Tero buru) to praise the departed, to console the bereaved, to keep people awake at night, to express pain and agony and during cleansing and chasing away of spirits, during beer parties (Dudu, ohangla dance), welcoming back the warriors from a war, during a wrestling match (Ramogi), during courtship, in rain making and during divination and healing. Work songs are performed both during communal work like building, weeding, etc. and individual work like pounding of cereals, winnowing.

Regions

Geo-political map of Africa divided for ethnomusicological purposes, after Merriam, 1959.

Alan P. Merriam divided Africa into seven regions for ethnomusicological purposes, observing current political frontiers (see map), and this article follows this division as far as possible in surveying the music of ethnic groups in Africa.

Sahel and Sudan

Sudan takes its name from that of the sub-Saharan savanna which makes, with the Nile, a great cross-roads of the region. South of the Sahara the Sahel forms a bio-geographic zone of transition between the desert and the Sudanian Savannas, stretching between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. The Nilotic peoples prominent in southern Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and northern Tanzania, include the Luo, Dinka, Nuer and Maasai.[14] Many of these have been included in the Eastern region.

The sahel (brown) and the Sudan (green)

The Senegambian Fula have migrated as far as Sudan at various times, often speaking Arabic as well as their own language. The Hausa people, who speak a language related to Ancient Egyptian and Biblical Hebrew, have moved in the opposite direction. Further west the Berber music of the Tuareg has penetrated to Sub-Saharan countries. These are included in the Western region, but the music of Sub-Saharan herders and nomads is heard from west to east.

Western, central, eastern and southern territories

Saharan trade routes circa 1400

These remaining four regions are most associated with Sub-Saharan African music: familiar African musical elements such as the use of cross-beat and vocal harmony may be found all over all four regions, as may be some instruments such as the iron bell. This is largely due to the expansion of the Niger–Congo-speaking people that began around 1500 BC: the last phases of expansion were 0–1000 AD.[16][17][18] Only a few scattered languages in this great area cannot readily be associated with the Niger–Congo language family. However two significant non-Bantu musical traditions, the Pygmy music of the Congo jungle and that of the bushmen of the Kalahari, do much to define the music of the central region and of the southern region respectively.

West Africa

Gambian boy with bowed tin-can lute

The music of West Africa must be considered under two main headings: in its northernmost and westernmost parts, many of the above-mentioned transnational sub-Saharan ethnic influences are found among the Hausa, the Fulani, the Wolof people, the Mande speakers of Mali, Senegal and Mauritania, the Gur-speaking peoples of Mali, Burkina Faso and the northern halves of Ghana, Togo and Cote d'Ivoire, the Fula found throughout West Africa, and the Senufo speakers of Côte d'Ivoire and Mali.

The coastal regions are home to the Niger-Congo speakers; Kwa, Akan, the Gbe languages, spoken in Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, of which Ewe is best known, the Yoruba and Igbo languages, spoken in Nigeria and the Benue–Congo languages of the east.

Inland and coastal languages are only distantly related. While the north, with its griot traditions, makes great use of stringed instruments and xylophones, the south relies much more upon drum sets and communal singing.

Northern

The Malian kora harp-lute is perhaps the most sophisticated of Africa's stringed instruments

Complex societies existed in the region from about 1500 BCE. The Ghana Empire[19] existed from before c. 830 until c. 1235 in what is now south-east Mauritania and western Mali. The Sosso people had their capital at Koumbi Saleh until Sundiata Keita defeated them at the Battle of Kirina (c. 1240) and began the Mali Empire, which spread its influence along the Niger River through numerous vassal kingdoms and provinces. The Gao Empire at the eastern Niger bend was powerful in the ninth century CE but later subordinated to Mali until its decline. In 1340 the Songhai people made Gao the capital of a new Songhai Empire.[20]

Jola man at Boucotte in Casamance (Sénégal) playing the akonting
A performance group from Burkina Faso based on the balafon

The Gulf of Guinea

The musical ensemble of the chief of Abetifi (Kwahu people) c. 1890[29]

The music of Cape Verde has long been influenced by Europe,[40] Instrumentation includes the accordion (gaita), the bowed rabeca, the violão guitar and the viola twelve string guitar as well as cavaquinho, cimboa and ferrinho. Styles include batuque, coladera, funaná, morna and tabanca.

Central Africa

The Central African musicological region and the River Congo upon a satellite photograph showing the African tropical rainforest and desert regions.

The central region of African music is defined by the tropical rain-forests at the heart of the continent. However Chad, the northernmost state, has a considerable subtropical and desert northern region.

Northern traditions

The north of this region has Nilo-Saharans such as the Zande people. Early kingdoms were founded near Lake Chad: the Kanem Empire, ca. 600 BCE – 1380 CE[41] encompassed much of Chad, Fezzan, east Niger and north-east Nigeria, perhaps founded by the nomadic Zaghawa, then ruled by the Sayfawa Dynasty. The Bornu Empire (1396–1893) was a continuation, the Kanembu founding a new state at Ngazargamu. These spoke the Kanuri languages spoken by some four million people in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Libya and Sudan. They are noted for lute and drum music. The Kingdom of Baguirmi (1522–1897) and the Ouaddai Empire (1635–1912) were also centred near Lake Chad.

The Pygmy peoples

Distribution of Pygmies according to Cavalli-Sforza

Bantu traditions

East Africa

The East African musicological region, which includes the islands of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius, Comor and the Seychelles, has been open to the influence of Arabian and Iranian music since the Shirazi Era. In the south of the region Swahili culture has adopted instruments such as the dumbek, oud and qanun – even the Indian tabla drums.[53] The kabosy, also called the mandoliny, a small guitar of Madagascar, like the Comorian gabusi, may take its name from the Arabian qanbūs. Taarab, a modern genre popular in Tanzania and Kenya, is said to take both its name and its style from Egyptian music as formerly cultivated in Zanzibar. Latterly there have been European influences also: the guitar is popular in Kenya, the contredanse, mazurka and polka are danced in the Seychelles.[54]

Northern traditions

Bantu traditions

Ngbaka-speaking Gbanzili men of the rainforest play xylophones with calabash resonators, 1907.

Drums (ngoma, ng'oma or ingoma) are much used: particularly large ones have been developed among the court musicians of East African kings. The term ngoma is applied to rhythm and dance styles as well as the drums themselves.[53] as among the East Kenyan Akamba, the Buganda of Uganda,[58] and the Ngoni people of Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, who trace their origins to the Zulu people of kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.[59] The term is also used by the Tutsi/Watusi and Hutu/Bahutu.[60] Bantu style drums, especially the sukuti drums, are played by the Luhya people[57] (also known as Avaluhya, Abaluhya or Luyia),[61] a Bantu people of Kenya,[62] being about 16% of Kenya's total population of 38.5 million, and in Uganda and Tanzania.[62] They number about 6.1 million people.[63] Abaluhya litungo.[64]

The Indian Ocean

Southern Africa

Lists of folk music traditions
Sub-Saharan Africa
Asia
Caribbean
Central America
Europe
Middle East & North Africa
North America
Oceania and Australia
South America

The Southern Bantu languages include all of the important Bantu languages of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, and several of southern Mozambique. They have several sub-groups;

Instruments

African dances

West

Gerewol.[79] Dan people masked dance.[25] Yoruba gelede.[32] Hausa asauwara[80] Ewe dances: agbadza – Gadzo.[81] Mande include the Mandinka, Maninka and Bamana Dances: bansango – didadi dimba – sogominkum.[82] Dagomba dance: takai damba – jera simpa – bamaya – tora – geena. São Tomé and Principe dance: danço-Congo puíta – ússua.[39] Cape Verde[40] Dance = batuque coladera funaná morna – tabanca. Kasena Dances: jongo – nagila – pe zara war dance.[37] Akan dances: adowa – osibisaba – sikyi. The Ashanti[37] Nzema people[25] dance: abissa fanfare – grolo – sidder

Southern

Notes

  1. Jones, A.M. (1959), Studies in African Music, London: Oxford University Press. 1978 edition: ISBN 978-0-19-713512-9.
  2. C. Stapleton and C. May, African All-stars, Paladin 1989, page 5.
  3. " African music." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online
  4. African Dance. Kariamu Welsh, 2004, Chelsea House Publishers, page 35. ISBN 0791076415
  5. Steppin' on the Blues by Jacqui Malone. University of Illinois Press. 1996. page 9. ISBN 0-252-02211-4
  6. African Dance. Kariamu Welsh, 2004, Chelsea House Publishers, pages 19,21. ISBN 0791076415
  7. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience by Henry Louis Gates, Anthony Appiah 1999 Basic Civics Books page 556 ISBN 0-465-00071-1
  8. Rhythm As A Tool For Healing and Health in The Aging process
  9. Sebastian Bakare, The Drumbeat of Life, WCC Publications, Geneva, Switzerland. 1997.
  10. "Topic Three". Department of Communication Studies, University of North Texas. Archived from the original on August 3, 2010.
  11. Zimbabwe Dance. Kariamu Welsh Asante. Africa World Press, Inc. 2000, p. 60 ISBN 0-86543-492-1
  12. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), Languages of Sudan, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed., Dallas: SIL International, 2005
  13. Bechtold, Peter R. (1991). "More Turbulence in Sudan — A New Politics This Time?" in Sudan: State and Society in Crisis, edited by John Voll. (Middle East Institute (Washington, D.C.) in association with the Indiana University Press (Bloomington, Indiana). p. 1. ISBN 978-0-253-36270-4.
  14. "Nilotic", The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.
  15. Ancient Historical Society Virtual Museum, 2010
  16. The Chronological Evidence for the Introduction of Domestic Stock in Southern Africa Archived March 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  17. A Brief History of Botswana Archived 17 January 2010 at WebCite
  18. On Bantu and Khoisan in (Southeastern) Zambia, (in German) Archived 17 January 2010 at WebCite
  19. Lange (2004), Ancient kingdoms of West Africa, pp. 509–516, ISBN 978-3-89754-115-3
  20. Haskins, p. 46
  21. Guinea entry at The World Factbook
  22. Hudson, Mark with Jenny Cathcart and Lucy Duran, "Senegambian Stars Are Here to Stay" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 617–633; Karolyi, p. 42
  23. Hudson, Mark with Jenny Cathcart and Lucy Duran, "Senegambian Stars Are Here to Stay" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 617–633
  24. de Klein, Guus, "The Backyard Beats of Gumbe" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 499–504
  25. 1 2 3 4 5 Bensignor, François and Brooke Wentz, "Heart of the African Music Industry" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 472–476
  26. Turino, p. 182; Collins, John, "Gold Coast: Highlife and Roots" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 488–498
  27. Martin Staniland, The Lions of Dagbon, (1975), Christine Oppong, Growing up in Dagbon, (1973), David Locke, Drum Damba, quoted by Elana Cohen-Khani at .
  28. Bensignor, Fran&ccedi;ois, "Hidden Treasure" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 437–439
  29. "Chief of Abertifi's orchestra, Friedrich August Louis Ramseyer, 1888–95, taken in Abetifi, Kwahu East District
  30. Manuel, Popular Musics, pp. 90, 92, 182; Collins, John, "Gold Coast
    Highlife and Roots" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 488–498; Koetting, James T., "Africa/Ghana" in Worlds of Music, pp. 67–105
  31. 1 2 Bensignor, Fran&ccedi;ois with Eric Audra, "Afro-Funksters" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 432–436
  32. 1 2 Turino, pp. 181–182; Bensignor, Fran&ccedi;ois with Eric Audra, and Ronnie Graham, "Afro-Funksters" and "From Hausa Music to Highlife" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 432–436,588–600; Karolyi, p. 43
  33. Echezona, Wilberforce W. Music Educators Journal. Ibo Musical Instruments. Vol. 50, No. 5. (April – May 1964), pp. 23–27,130–131.
  34. "Ames, David. African Arts. Kimkim: A Women's Musical Pot Vol. 11, No. 2. (January 1978), pp. 56–64,95–96."
  35. Ronnie Graham, "From Hausa Music to Highlife" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 588–600
  36. 1 2 3 Nkolo, Jean-Victor and Graeme Ewens, "Music of a Small Continent" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 440–447
  37. 1 2 3 Koetting, James T., "Africa/Ghana" in Worlds of Music, pp. 67–105
  38. Dominguez, Manuel, "Malabo Blues" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 477–479
  39. 1 2 Lima, Conceução and Caroline Shaw, "Island Music of Central Africa" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 613–616
  40. 1 2 Manuel, Popular Musics, p. 96; Máximo, Susana and David Peterson, "Music of Sweet Sorrow" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 448–457
  41. Lange, Founding of Kanem, 31–38.
  42. Traditional Music of the Republic of Chad – Sound Clip – MSN Encarta. Archived from the original on 2009-11-01.
  43. http://cp.settlement.org/english/chad/arts.html Archived September 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  44. Virtual Chad: A look beyond the statistics into the realities of life in Chad, Africa
  45. Tishkoff; et al. (2009), "The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans", the American Association for the Advancement of Science Also see Supplementary Data
  46. World Bank accused of razing Congo forests, The Guardian.
  47. A. Price et al., Sensitive Detection of Chromosomal Segments of Distinct Ancestry in Admixed Populations
  48. 1 2 Forest peoples in the central African rain forest: focus on the pygmies.
  49. Turino, pp. 170–171; Abram, Dave, "Sounds from the African Rainforest" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 601–607; Karolyi, p. 24
  50. African Rhythms (2003). Music by Aka Pygmies, performed by Aka Pygmies, György Ligeti and Steve Reich, performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Teldec Classics: 8573 86584-2. Liner notes by Aimard, Ligeti, Reich, and Simha Arom and Stefan Schomann.
  51. Nettl, Folk and Traditional Music, p. 142
  52. 1 2 3 Ronnie Graham with Simon Kandela Tunkanya, "Evolution and Expression" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 702–705
  53. 1 2 3 4 Graebner, Werner, "Mtindo – Dance with Style" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 681–689
  54. 1 2 3 Ewens, Graeme and Werner Graebner, "A Lightness of Touch" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 505–508
  55. 1 2 Turino, pp. 179, 182; Sandahl, Sten, "Exiles and Traditions" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 698–701
  56. 1 2 3 Paterson, Doug, "The Life and Times of Kenyan Pop" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 509–522
  57. Turino, pp. 179, 182; Sandahl, Sten, "Exiles and Traditions" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 698–701; Koetting, James T., "Africa/Ghana" in Worlds of Music, pp. 67–105; World Music Central Archived April 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  58. 1 2 Lwanda, John, and Ronnie Graham with Simon Kandela Tunkanya, "Sounds Afroma!" and "Evolution and Expression" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 533–538,702–705
  59. 1 2 Jacquemin, Jean-Pierre, Jadot Sezirahigha and Richard Trillo, "Echoes from the Hills" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 608–612
  60. Ember, Carol R.; Melvin Ember (2003). Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender. New York: Springer. p. 247. ISBN 978-0-306-47770-6.
  61. 1 2 The Luhya of Kenya
  62. Health | Data
  63. Encyclopædia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/290356/interlocking
  64. Theory of Music
  65. Nettl, Bruno (1956). Music in Primitive Culture. Harvard University Press. https://theoryofmusic.wordpress.com/page/176/
  66. Paco, Celso, "A Luta Continua" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 579–584; Karolyi, p. 32; Koetting, James T., "Africa/Ghana" in Worlds of Music, pp. 67–105
  67. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lwanda, John, "Sounds Afroma!" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 533–538
  68. Manuel, Popular Musics, p. 112; Ewens, Graeme and Werner Graebner, "A Lightness of Touch" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 111–112, 505–508
  69. Barnard, Alan (1992) Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. New York; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  70. Karolyi, p. 24
  71. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Allingham, Rob, "The Nation of Voice" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 638–657
  72. Manuel, Popular Musics, p. 107
  73. Turino, pp. 105, 162, 182–183; Kendall, Judy and Banning Eyre, "Jit, Mbira and Chimurenga" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 706–716
  74. Karolyi, p. 45
  75. 1 2 Turino, p. 183
  76. Turino, p. 183; Karolyi, p. 37
  77. Bensignor, François, "Sounds of the Sahel" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 585–587
  78. Turino, p. 184; Bensignor, François and Ronnie Graham, "Sounds of the Sahel" and "From Hausa Music to Highlife" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 585–587, 588–600
  79. Turino, p. 178; Collins, John, "Gold Coast: Highlife and Roots" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 488–498
  80. Turino, pp. 172–173; Bensignor, Fran&ccedi;ois, Guus de Klein, and Lucy Duran, "Hidden Treasure", "The Backyard Beats of Gumbe" and "West Africa's Musical Powerhouse" in the Rough Guide to World Music, pp. 437–439, 499–504, 539–562; Manuel, Popular Musics, p. 95; World Music Central Archived February 7, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.

References

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