has been a vital part of the lives of Africans. It was primarily performed during rituals in the monumental parts of their lives like birth, marriage, death, and war.

usually performed with dancing as a part of gatherings whether it is social or political.

is one of the most influential styles of music in the world.

It has greatly influenced the music of Contemporary America, Latin America and European music.

Its highly energetic and rhythmically challenging beats are quite universal.

genres of music that have deep roots to african music

mainly functional in nature which is used primarily in ceremonial rites, such as birth, death, marriage, succession, worship, and spirit invocations. Others are work related or social in nature, while many traditional societies view their music as a form of entertainment.

types of african music

is a term used to describe the fusion of West African with Black American music.

It is a musical genre from Nigeria in the Yoruba tribal style to wake up the worshippers after fasting during the Muslim holy feast of Ramadan.

It is a popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil. It fuses the Afro-Caribbean styles of marcha, reggae, and calypsoIt is a popular musical genre from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil. It fuses the Afro-Caribbean styles of marcha, reggae, and calypso

It is a hard and fast percussive Zimbabwean dance music played on drums with guitar accompaniment influenced by mbira-based guitar styles.

It is a popular form of South African music featuring a lively and uninhibited variation of the jitterbug, a form of swing dance.

is a popular music style from Nigeria that relies on the traditional Yoruba rhythms. A drum kit, keyboard, pedal steel guitar, and accordion are used along with the traditional dun-dun (talking drum or squeeze drum).

dundun

It is a music style that begun in Zaire in the late 1980s popularized by Kanda Bongo Man. In this dance style, the hips move back and forth while the arms move following the hips.

who popularized kwassa kwassa

It is a South African three-chord township music of the 1930s-1960s which evolved into African Jazz. It is characterized by simple chords in varying vamping patterns and repetitive harmony over an extended period.

vocal forms of african music

It is the combination of strong rhythms of African percussion instruments and Portuguese melodies. This form of music is being paraded along the streets by up to 100 participants.

It is one of the most widely performed musical forms of the late 19th century. The melodies of blues are expressive and soulful. The slaves and their descendants used to sing these as they work in the fields.

It is a popular music genre of the 1950s and 1960s which originated in the African-American community throughout the United States. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues, and often jazz.

It originated in the Unites States and created by African-American slaves. It is also known as "Negro Spiritual". It became a means of imparting Christian values and a way of venting their hardships as slaves.

It is likened to a question and answer sequence in human communication. The slaves used to sing these songs while simultaneously doing all their tasks in a day.

musical instruments of africa

Sound is produced by the body of the instrument vibrating.

It is a single bell or multiple bells and is considered as the oldest samba instrument based on West African Yoruba single or double bells. It has the highest pitch of any of the bateria instruments.

It is a type of gourd and shell mega-phone from West Africa, consisting of a dried gourd with beads woven into a net covering the gourd.

It is a hollow percussion instrument. Although known as a drum, it is not a true drum but is an idiophone. It is usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top.

It is a hollowed cylinder of wood with a narrow longitudinal opening or slit whose edges are struck to produce a deep, sonorous tone. They are considered to be portraits of ancestors so that when played, it is the voices of awakened ancestors which resonate from their interior chamber.

It is a kind of wooden xylophone or percussion idiophone which playsmelodic tunes. It has been played in the region since the 1300s. In the 16th century, it became a real art at the royal court of Sikasso/ Mali and was flourishing under the reign of a generous king

Sound is produced by the vibration of a tightly stretched membrane.

refers to African music using their bodies as instruments. Their body can be used to produce sound by clapping their hands, slapping their thighs, pounding their upper arms or chests, or shuffling their feet. Wearing of rattles or bells on their wrists, ankles, arms, and waists enhances their emotional response.

It is used to send messages to announce births, deaths, marriages. sporting events, dances, initiations or war. It is believed that the drums can carry direct messages to the spirits after the death of a loved one.

one of the best-known African drums. It is shaped like a large goblet and played with bare hands. The body is carved from a hollowed trunk and is covered with goat skin.

Sound is produced by the vibration of tongues of metal, wood or other material.

It is a set of plucked tines or keys mounted on a sound board. It is being played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines with the thumbs. They used this instrument to drive away evil spirits since it is believed that it was a vector of communication with ancestors and spirits.

It is a hand-crafted instrument with a unique harp or bell-like sound. It is a popular traditional instrument of the Shona people in Zimbabwe. It is a radical redesign of the African Mbira and it consists of up to 150 metal tines attached to a wooden board, comprising up to five octaves.

Sound is produced by the vibration of a string or strings that are stretched between fixed points.

is the ancestor of all string instruments. It is the oldest and one of the most widely used string instruments of Africa. It consists of a single string attached to each end of a curved stick, similar to a bow and arrow.

is an African fiddle played with a bow, a small wooden stick, or plucked with the fingers. It has one or two strings made of steel or bicycle brake wire. It is from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sound is produced through the vibration of air.

It is a type of flute which is widely used throughout Africa and either vertical or side-blown. They are usually fashioned from a single tube closed at one end and blown like a bottle.

It is made from the horn of the kudu antelope. Its sound releases a mellow and warm sound that adds a unique African accent to their music.

Idiophones

Membranophones

Lamellaphone

Chordophones

Aerophones

The music of Latin America is the product of three major influences

Sometimes called Latin music, it includes the countries that have a colonial history from Spain and Portugal, divided into the following areas of Andean Region, Central America, Caribbean and Brazil.

influences on latin america music

The natives were found to be using local drum and percussion instruments. was largely functional in nature, being used for religious worships and ceremonies.

The ethnic and cultural groups of the principal Native Americans share many similar yet distinctive music elements. Songs had a wide range of volume levels. Songs celebrate themes like harvest, planting season or other important events or occasions of the year.

The African influence on Latin American music is most pronounced in its rich and varied rhythmic patterns produced by drums and various percussion instruments.

The different regions of Latin America adopted various characteristics from their European colonizers. Melodies of the Renaissance period were used in Southern Chile and the Colombian Pacific coasts.

The result of the massive infusion of African culture also brought about the introduction of other music and dance forms such as the Afro-Cuban rumba, Jamaican reggae, Colombian cumbia, and the Brazilian samba.

popular latin American music

It is a dance form of African origin around 1838 which evolved into an African-Brazilian invention in the working class and slum districts of Rio de Janeiro. Its lively rhythm was meant to be executed for singing, dancing, and parading in the carnival.

It is a fusion of the popular music or canciones (songs) of Spain and the African rumba rhythms of Bantu origin. Originating in Cuba, it is usually played with the guitar, contrabass, bongos, maracas, and claves. Its most important legacy is its influence on present-day Latin American music, particularly as the forerunner of the salsa.

It is a social dance with marked influences from Cuba and Puerto Rico that started in New York in the mid 1970s. Its style contains elements from the swing dance and hustle as well as the complex Afro-Cuban and Afro-Caribbean dance forms of pachanga and guaguanco.

vocal and dance forms of latin american music

It is a popular African courtship dance with European and African instrumentation and characteristics, originating in Panama and Colombia. It contains varying rhythmic meters.

It is a foremost Argentinian and Uruguayan urban popular song and dance and remains a 20th century nationalistic Argentinian piece of music that is most expressive.

It is a ballroom dance originated in Cuba in 1953 that was derived from the mambo. The Cuban Cha Cha is considered more sensual because it contains polyrhythmic patterns.

It is a popular recreational dance with Afro-Cuban origin. It is normally used as a ballroom dance where a couple would be in an embrace though slightly apart, with the rocking of the hips to a fast-fast-slow sequence

It is the slower and gentler version of the Cuban Samba, originated in the 1950s. It is the Portuguese term for "new trend". This genre integrates melody, harmony and rhythm into swaying feel and mostly sung in a nasal manner. Antonio Carlos Jobim is the foremost international figure of Bossa nova while Sitti Navarro is his Filipino counterpart.

It is an urban popular music and dance style that originated in Jamaica in the mid1960s. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat and the offbeat rhythm section. Bob Marley is the best-known proponent of reggae who hails from Jamaica.

It is a 20th century social dance that originated after 1910 in the USA. This dance had no fixed step pattern, instead borrowing from other dance forms and having a simple forward/backward sequence.

It is a theatrical Spanish dance used by the Spaniards in bullfights which means "double step". The dance is arrogant and dignified where the dancer takes strong steps forward with the heels accompanied by artistic hand movements, foot stomping, sharp and quick.