African Music – The Blog of Samite

Posts Tagged ‘Caribbean’

Traditionally, world music artist meant any musician who created a sound out of Africa, Asia, South and Central America, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean.

In the 1980s the rapid rise in popularity of non-English popular music in the U.S. and Great Britain prompted a search for a name for this new genre.  “World music” was considered a lasting and mainstream style by the early 1990s.

This genre received early endorsement by Francis Bebey, a Cameroon national living in France who boosted the profile of this rich and soulful sound.  France became an appreciative market.

The biggest stars in those early days were Fela Anikulapo Kuti and King Sunny Ade from Nigeria and Youssou N’Dour from Senegal.

In the 21st century world music grew to include the Pakistani sounds of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who artfully blended technologically sophisticated rhythmic sounds with ancient messages.  The French group Gipsy Kings were performers who wove this unique texture into a popular sound of the early new century.

World music has its share of detractors.  The New York Times published an Op-Ed piece by David Byrne of the Luaka Bop music label.  Titled, I Hate World Music, Byrne wrote that describing music of other cultures as “exotic” places an unfair advantage on world music artists over others performing in more typical genres.

The BBC Radio 3 obviously thinks otherwise, hosting World Music Awards from 2005 until 2008.  Beginning in 2009 the Awards were hosted by the Music Magazine Songlines.

Today people around the world, in cities large and small, have the opportunity to hear world music through dozens of festivals occurring around the world.  The largest is the Ariano Folk Festival in southern Italy.  One of the smallest locales is in Trumansburg in the Finger Lakes region of New York, home of our believed world music artist, Samite Mulondo.

It usually takes place annually on the second-to-last weekend of July in Trumansburg, New York (10 Mi. North of Ithaca). GrassRoots presents over 60 bands on four stages for four days, in just about every genre you could think of, with the emphasis being on world, folk and ethnic music.  Watch this site for future announcements.

The African music instrument, like the human race, originated in the cradle of humanity; Africa.  It is from here that all the musical instruments we use around the world today originated.

This is especially true of the instruments of Northern Africa which have a decidedly Islamic flair.  Nearly all the Western instruments used in Europe and the Americas started here from wind instruments to the strings like guitar and violin.

Drums are quite unique to the sub-Saharan.  They are not used much in Islamic music, but they are an integral part of musical expression in all other African cultures and societies.

To understand African music today we must first explore its roots.  The first Africans to leave the continent settled in the Caribbean in the 16th century.  By the early 17th century they arrived in the Colony of Virginia.

Unfortunately the African experience was not welcomed in the New World.  Artistic expression was tightly controlled or suppressed altogether.  Fortunately, African influences endured and today they are a driving presence in the American music scene.

African music especially that of the sub-Sahara, has strong rhythmic components.  Percussive instruments like drums, horns, rattles and even bells create an experience of many layers.  In addition, dance is an integral part of music and the body forms an instrument of its own with handclapping and bells jingling on costume to add to the musical texture.

The earliest music was intended as a communication form that was not intended to be pleasant or lyrical.  A particular drumbeat could signal the approach of an enemy tribe or even the King.  This is why ante-bellum plantation owners in America sought to thwart African slave expression.

The plantation owners feared there was a revolt underway that would catch the “owners” by surprise.  The slaves adapted their sounds to more Western sensibilities, one of many ways the African music instrument survives today.

To hear absolutley pure African music you will want to order Samite’s latest CD: “My Music World“.