Genres that laid the foundation for the development of African music

May is celebrated worldwide as Africa Month, and nothing embodies the spirit of the continent than the diversity of its musical rhythms. The success of contemporary sounds like Afrobeats and Amapiano that now attract a manic global following comes from years of relentless struggle to shift African music from the amorphous ‘world music’ categorisation into distinct genres.

In this first part of the Africa Month series, BD Life pays homage to five homegrown musical styles that revolved around the larger-than-life personalities of their chief exponents, to transcend borders and leave their mark internationally.

Makossa

Saxophonist Manu Dibango, popularly known as ‘the Lion of Cameroon’ was one of the most prolific African artistes, and his musical signature was makossa.

Although the style can be traced to Douala in the Littorial Region of Cameroon, where it has existed in some shape or form since the early 1950s, it was really Dibango who put the music on the map.

Blending blues, jazz, reggae, highlife with influences of Congolese rumba and traditional music from Cameroon to create an electrifying beat, makossa propelled Dibango to extraordinary heights of success.

In 1972 Soul Makossa made him the first African musician to score a Top 40 hit in the US and earned two Grammy Award nominations.

The signature refrain mama-say, ma-makossa, was famously sampled by Michael Jackson and later by Rihanna. Dibango died in March 2020 at the age of 86 and his legacy of shaping this one-of-a-kind musical style will be celebrated for generations to come.

Afrobeat

Afrobeat was founded and single-handedly popularised by Nigerian legend Fela Kuti as a consequence of a fusion between jazz, soul, and rhythm and blues with traditional Yoruba rhythms.

While studying music in London in the early 1960s, Fela acquired the technical musical skills to combine Western styles with rhythms from his West African heritage, and upon his return to Nigeria, developed what became known as Afrobeat.

The sound was an innovative mix of music that was defined not just by intricate musical arrangements but also radical social and political satire that earned Fela notoriety as an anti-establishment gadfly thanks to songs like Zombie, Suffering and Smiling and ITT (International Thief Thief).

The Afrobeat heritage lives on in Fela’s sons, Femi and Seun Kuti, the latter inherited his father’s band Egypt 80. While there are few similarities to the contemporary juggernaut of Afrobeats, there is no denying Fela’s influence on a new generation of his compatriots who now have the world at their feet.

Ethio-Jazz

Ethiopian composer and pianist Mulatu Astatke, just like Fela, studied music at Trinity College of Music in London and became the first African student at the prestigious Berklee Music.

That exposure inspired him to go back to his roots to combine the traditional pentatonic-scale Amharic music with funk, jazz, and Latin music, which gave birth to Ethio Jazz.

He found a way for indigenous instruments like masenqo, a traditional single-stringed instrument played with a bow, to be arranged in perfect harmony alongside guitars and horns,

Ethio Jazz hardly became an overnight success because Ethiopia suffered years of political turmoil in the 1970s during the military regime when freedoms were curtailed but Mulatu remained resilient.

International acclaim came in 2005 when his songs, Yegelle Tezeta, Gubelye and Yekermo Sew, were featured in the soundtrack to the Hollywood film Broken Flowers.

Even at the age of 81, Mulatu is still the biggest ambassador for Ethio Jazz, recording, touring with his band, and offering masterclasses to young musicians.

Rumba

While there is no one single artiste that defines Congolese rumba, no other African musical genre has evolved so resolutely through generations, at each stage championed by extraordinary stars.

In the 1950s, musicians in what was then Belgian Congo, fused traditional African rhythms with Afro-Cuban music to create Congolese rumba. The enchanting beat was the soundtrack of the country’s quest for independence with Joseph “Le Grand Kalle” Kabasele’s Pan- African liberation anthem Independence Cha Cha.

In the last six decades rumba has been championed by icons like Dr. Nico, Franco and T.P. O.K Jazz, Tabu Ley with Afrisa International, Koffi Olomide and Fally Ipupa.

In 2021 Congolese rumba was added to Unesco intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. As one of the genre’s eminent stars Papa Wemba once said: “Congolese rumba will never get wrinkles”.

Mbaqanga

Today, South Africa is a music powerhouse thanks to the pulsating groove of amapiano, but the roots of the success of that genre lie in the dance rhythms of the country’s urban township, chiefly mbaqanga. A Zulu word that means ‘dumpling’ (originally used pejoratively to refer to a type of music considered unsophisticated), mbaqanga became popular in the 1960s and 70s from a mix of traditional harmonies, the dance style of kwela with jazz, R&B and blues.

It was embraced by the country’s most influential musicians, among them Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, the Mahotella Queens, becoming a crucial part of the cultural edifice that has provided a foundation for kwaito in the 1990s and the global phenomenon that is amapiano.

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