Afro-Latin American and popular music

• Music has always been an important part of the daily life of the African people, whether for work, religion, ceremonies, or even communication
• Singing, dancing, hand clapping and the beating of drums are essential to many African ceremonies, including those for birth, death, initiation, marriage, and funerals
• Particular subjects of research are its rhythmic structures and spiritual characteristics that have led to the birth of jazz forms
• African music is a collective result of the cultural and musical diversity of the more than 50 ethnic divisions of the continent
• Traditional African music

  • Largely functional in nature, used primarily in ceremonial rites, such as birth, death, marriage, succession, worship, and spirit invocations
  • Others are work related or social in nature
  • Many traditional societies view their music as entertainment
• African music

  • Has a basically interlocking structural format, due mainly to its overlapping and dense texture as well as its rhythmic complexity
  • Has many sources of influence that have produced varied styles and genres
• Afrobeat

  A fusion of West African with black American music
• Apala (Akpala)

  • A musical genre from Nigeria in the Yoruba tribal style, used to wake up the worshippers after fasting during the Muslim holy feast of Ramadan
  • Percussion instrumentation includes the rattle (sekere), thumb piano (agidigbo), bell (agogo), and two or three talking drums
• Axe


  A popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil that fuses the Afro-Caribbean styles of the marcha, reggae, and calypso, and is played by carnival bands
• Jit


  A hard and fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played on drums with guitar accompaniment, influenced by mbira-based guitar styles
• Jive


  A popular form of South African music featuring a lively and uninhibited variation of the jitterbug, a form of swing dance
• Juju


  A popular music style from Nigeria that relies on the traditional Yoruba rhythms, where the instruments are more Western in origin such as a drum kit, keyboard, pedal steel guitar, and accordion used along with the traditional dun-dun (talking drum or squeeze drum)
• Kwassa kwassa


  A dance style begun in Zaire in the late 1980s, popularized by Kanda Bongo Man. In this dance style, the hips move back and forth while the arms follow the hip movements.
• Kanda Bongo Man

  • King of kwassa kwassa
• Marabi


  A South African three-chord township music of the 1930s-1960s which evolved into African jazz. It makes use of a keyboard style that combines 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.
• Reggae


  A Jamaican musical style that was strongly influenced by the island's traditional mento music, as well as by calypso, African music, American jazz, and rhythm and blues. One of reggae's most distinctive qualities is its offbeat rhythm and staccato chords.
• Salsa


  Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Colombian dance music. It comprises various musical genres including the Cuban son montuno, guaracha, chachacha, mambo, and bolero.
• Samba


  A Brazilian musical genre and dance style with roots traced to Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions particularly in Angola and the Congo
• Samba


  • The basic underlying rhythm that typifies most Brazilian music
  • Has a lively and rhythmical beat with three steps to every bar, making the samba feel like a timed dance
  • There is a set of dances rather than a single dance that define the samba dancing scene in Brazil, so no dance can be claimed with certainty as the "original" samba style
• Soca


  • Also known as the "soul of calypso", it originated as a fusion of calypso with Indian rhythms, thus combining the musical traditions of the two major ethnic groups of Trinidad and Tobago
  • A modern Trinidadian and Tobagonian pop music combining soul and calypso music
• Were


  • Muslim music often performed as a wake-up call for early breakfast and prayers during Ramadan celebrations
  • Relying on pre-arranged music, it fuses the African and European music styles
• Zouk


  • Fast, carnival-like rhythmic music, from the Creole slang word for "party"
  • Originated in the Caribbean Islands of Guadaloupe and Martinique and was popularized in the 1980s
  • Has a pulsating beat supplied by the gwo ka and tambour bele drums, a tibwa rhythmic pattern played on the rim of the snare drum, a rhythm guitar, a horn section, and keyboard synthesizers
• • Maracatu first surfaced in the African state of Pernambuco, combining the strong rhythms of African percussion instruments with Portuguese melodies
  • The maracatu groups were called nacoes (nations) who paraded with a drumming ensemble numbering up to 100, accompanied by a singer, a chorus, and a cotorie of dancers.
• Maracatu uses mostly percussion instruments such as

  • Alfaia
  • Gongue
  • Agbe
  • Tarol
  • Caixa-de-guerra
  • Miniero
• Alfaia is a large wooden that is rope-tuned
• Tarol is a shallow snare drum
• Caixa-de-geurra is a war-like snare
• Gongue

  • Has clanging sound
  • A metal cowbell
• Agbe is a gourd shaker covered by beads
• Miniero or ganza a metal cylindrical shaker filled with metal shot or small fried seeds
• Bues is a musical form of the late 19th century that had deep roots in African-American communities
• The feelings that are evoked in blues are normally associated with misfortune, lost love, frustration, or loneliness.
• Noted performers of the blues genre are

  • Ray Charles
  • James Brown
  • Cab Calloway
  • Aretha Franklin
  • John Lee Hooker
  • B.B. King
  • Bo Diddley
  • Erykah Badu
  • Eric Clapton
  • Steve Windwood
  • Charlie Musselwhite
• Examples of blues music

  • Early Mornin'
  • A house is not a home
  • Billie's Blues
• Soul music was a popular music genre of the 1950s and 1960s
• Soul music was orginated in the United States, and combined elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues, and often jazz
• Characteristics of Soul Music:

  • Catchy rhythm lz are accompaned by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves
  • Call and response
• James Brown is known as "Godfather of Soul"
• Sam Coocke and Jackie Wilson acknowledged as "Soul forefathers"
• Soul innovators:

  • Clyde Mcphatter
  • HankBallard
  • Etta James
  • Ray Charles
  • Little Richard
  • Otis Redding
  • Jams Brown