Soukous

Numbers of Music Genres in Africa

By admin on Jan 10, 2020 in Africa , African Music Beats , Afro Beat , Afrobeats , Azonto , Beats Producers , Burna Boy , Ghana Music Beat , Jazz , Juju , Kukere , Makossa , Mbaqanga , Music Beats Makers , Naija Music , Senegal , Soukous , Zambia - 0 Comments

Afro Beats In Africa - Music Genres In Africa

Music genres are plentiful on this continent. Here’s a short list of just a few of them:

Afrobeat
Fela Kuti created Afrobeat by fusing traditional Nigerian music, jazz and highlife. Today, it is often mixed with hip hop or makossa and well known even outside Africa.

Apala
Apala is a percussion-based style of the Muslim Yoruba people in Nigeria, West Africa.

Assiko
Assiko is a rhythmic dance from Cameroon.

Bikutsi
This dance music developped from the traditional music of the Beti in Cameroon. The sexy dance moves remind of the popular Mapouka from the Ivory Coast.

Benga music
Popular music in Kenya. The electric bass guitar imitates the melodies of the traditional Kenyan eight-string lyre called Nyatiti.

Bongo Flava (Tanzania)

Cabo-Love (Cape Verde)

Chimurenga music
Popular style from Zimbabwe. The melodies played by modern instruments are based on the traditional Mbira music of the Shona people.

Coladeira (Cape Verde)

Coupé-Decalé
Pop music from the Ivory Coast/France with danceable percussion and deep bass. This style is said to help Ivorians through tough times and difficult political situations.

Desert Blues
The people living in the Sahara desert have been making blues music long before it got famous in the West. This sounds absolutely brilliant!

Fuji
Popular music genre from Nigeria, based on traditional Muslim Yoruba music.

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Top 10 Richest African Musicians

By admin on Mar 11, 2016 in African Music Beats , Afrobeats , Apala Beat , Azonto , Don Jazzy , Hip Hop Beats , Jazz , Juju , Makossa , Music Beats Makers , Nigeria , Senegal , Soukous - 0 Comments

Afro Beat - Top 10 Richest African MusiciansThe list of musicians who rake in millions of dollars are usually reserved for international megastars like Beyonce or Kanye West and people who largely hail from the western world.

However, there are artistes across Africa whose stars are rapidly rising and they are able to command larger paychecks around the world.

Highly influential and each bringing their own unique sound, these artistes represent the richest African musicians, according to Answers Africa

10. Jose Chameleone….

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Makossa Beat

By admin on Jan 27, 2016 in Afrobeats , Disco , Highlife , Makossa , Soukous - 0 Comments

Makossa is a noted popular urban musical style. Like much other late 20th century music of Sub-Saharan Africa, it uses strong electric bass rhythms and prominent brass. In the 1980s makossa had a wave of mainstream success across Africa and to a lesser extent abroad.

Makossa, which means “(I) dance” in the Douala language, originated from a Douala dance called the kossa. Emmanuel Nelle Eyoum started using the refrain kossa kossa in his songs with his group Los Calvinos. The style began to take shape in the 1950s though the first recordings were not seen until a decade later.

Artists such as Eboa Lotin, Misse Ngoh and especially Manu Dibango, who popularised makossa throughout the world with his song “Soul Makossa” in the early 1970s. The chant from the song, mamako, mamasa, maka makossa, was later used by Michael Jackson in “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'”. Many other performers followed suit. The 2010 World cup also brought makossa to the international stage as Shakira sampled the Golden Sounds popular song “Zamina mina (Zangalewa)”.

Summary of African Popular Music

By admin on Jan 27, 2016 in Afro , Highlife , Jit , Juju , Kasongo , Mbaqanga , Soukous - 0 Comments

During the 1980s, the West rediscovered the folk music of Africa. Afro-rock started with commercial groups based in the west, such as Osibisa.

The cross-pollination took place in both directions: western popular music adopted elements of African music, while African music adopted elements (particularly the studio techniques) of western music.

During the 1980s, the styles and genres of the various African countries, such as South Africa’s “mbaqanga”, Zimbabwe’s “jit”, Zaire’s “soukous”, Nigeria’s “juju” and Ghana’s “highlife”, had a chance to develop and proliferate around the world.

African music of the 1950s
African music of the 1970s
Afro-pop of the 1980s

During the 1950s, when they experienced rapid urbanization and a relatively booming economy, the two French-speaking colonies of the Congo area (capitals in Brazzaville and Kinshasa) witnessed the birth of an African version of the Cuban rumba played by small American-style orchestras (called “kasongo”, “kirikiri” or “soukous”) with a touch of jazz and of local attitudes: Joseph “Grand Kalle” Kabasselleh’s African Jazz (that counted on vocalist Tabu Ley, guitarist “Docteur” Nico Kasanda, saxophonist Manu Dibango), Jean-Serge Essous’ O.K.Jazz (featuring the young Franco), Orchestre Bella Bella, etc. Each orchestra became famous for one or more “dances” that they invented. So soukous (as Ley dubbed it in 1966) is actually a history of dances, rather than one monolithic genre (Ley’s definition originally applied only to a frenzied version of rumba). A guitarist named Jimmy Elenga introduced “animation”: instructions yelled to the crowd in order to direct their dances. Animation eventually became part of the dance, delivering both the identity of the dance, the (ethnic) identity of the band and a (more or less subtle) sociopolitical message. As dictators seized power in both Congos, musicians emigrated to other African countries, to Europe and to the USA, thus spreading soukous around the world, while in Zaire (Congo Kinshasa) soukous bands were used for Maoist-style propaganda purposes (“l’animation politique”).

A key figure was “Franco” (Francois Luambo Makiadi), the guitarist who in 1958 evolved the O.K.Jazz into the 20-member T.P.O.K.Jazz (including saxohpnist ‘Verkys’ Kiamanguana Mateta) and was largely responsible for the relaxed, sensual, languid version of soukous that became predominant, before the 1967 arrival of guitarist Mose Fan Fan led to a more lively sound. His collaboration with Tabu Ley, Omana Wapi (1976), contained only four lengthy dances. The other star of the TP OK Jazz band, hired by Franco in 1984, was vocalist and composer Jean “Madilu System” Bialu.

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