All About Africa
Overland from Cork to Cape Town

African Music

"For the majority of Africans, music remains live and closely tied to their daily lives. The fact that this existence is now under threat from war, famine, invasion and western cultural imperialism in no way diminishes the continuing contribution which Africa makes to the enrichment of our daily lives."
--Ronnie Graham, The Da Capo Guide to Contemporary African Music, p. 15

The music of Africa cannot be squeezed into one mold. There is the traditional music of drums (perhaps the predominant musical reference point in the minds of Westerners); there is the modern or popular music of Mali's Ali Farka Toure, Nigeria's King Sunny Ade and his African Beats, and South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo. In fact, as musicologist John Storm Roberts has observed, "there's no way to write coherently about the music of a continent covering 52 independent nations, between 800 and 1600 languages (depending on your definition), and at least five major cultural groupings."

Source: Africa World Press Guide, Mar 12 2005.

Click here to read an essay written by Niamh for her music degree about African music.