Exploring South African Music
What Started it all...
While in Cape Town I was able to find a music store and proceeded to listen to all different kinds of music. These are the different things that I found:
Kwaito...
A
music genre that emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the
1990s. It is a variant of house music featuring the use of African sounds and
samples. Typically at a slower tempo range than other styles of house music, Kwaito often
contains catchy melodic and percussive loop samples, deep bass lines, and
vocals. Although bearing similarities to hip hop music, a distinctive
feature of Kwaito is the manner in which the lyrics are sung, rapped and
shouted.
Maskanda...
A
kind of
Zulu folk
music that is evolving with South African society. Maskanda is distinguished by an instrumental
flourish ("izihlabo") that sets the tone at the beginning of each
song, in a picked guitar style, and rapidly spoken sections of Zulu praise
poetry, called "izibongo".
Marabi...
A style of music from the Townships of Johannesburg. Originally it was played on pianos with accompaniment from pebble-filled cans. Eventually,
Marabi had incorporated new instruments, guitars,
concertinas and banjos, and new
styles of Marabi had sprung up. Among these were a Marabi/swing fusion called African jazz.
Zahara...
Afrikaan [Rap]...
So, I don't actually know of any artists, but I heard a lot of rap in Afrikaans from the students. When I got home and tried to look up some music, I found this "Antonio" person via youtube. As I was watching his video I laughed to myself as I watched him dance (because it looks just like the dancing my students do here in NJ) Ahhh, what a global reach contemporary hip-hop has, where young people thousands of miles removed still act like YMCMB.
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