Music of Africa
Music of Africa encompasses the continent’s diverse musical traditions and practices, shaped by regional, ethnic, religious, and popular cultures.
African polyrhythm: The simultaneous use of contrasting rhythmic patterns in African musical traditions. Interlocking rhythms are a defining feature of many ensemble performances across the continent.
Mbalax: A Senegalese popular music style combining sabar percussion with influences including jazz and Latin music. Its sound brings Wolof-language singing and Senegalese drumming into modern popular music.
African diaspora: The communities descended from people dispersed from Africa, especially through migration and the transatlantic slave trade. Diasporic exchange links African musical practices with traditions across the Atlantic world.
African-American music: Music created within African American communities in the United States, shaped by African and other influences. It shares diasporic connections with African traditions but developed in distinct historical settings.
Call and response: A musical exchange in which a leader’s phrase is answered by a group or another performer. This participatory structure links singers, instrumentalists, and audiences in many traditions.
Highlife: A Ghanaian popular music genre that developed through encounters among local rhythms, brass bands, and guitar music. Highlife shows how coastal social dance music became a major modern Ghanaian style.
Atlantic slave trade: The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Its violence dispersed African musical knowledge, which was reshaped in diasporic communities.
Arab music: Musical traditions associated with Arabic-speaking communities across the Middle East and North Africa. North African traditions often cross boundaries between African and Arab musical histories.
African musical instruments: Instruments developed or widely used in African musical traditions, including drums, rattles, flutes, and plucked strings. Instrument families reveal how local materials and performance roles shape distinct musical practices.
Soukous: A dance-oriented Congolese popular music style shaped by rumba and electric guitar. Its fast, melodic guitar lines helped carry Central African popular music across borders.