Music of West Africa
 |
The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (September 2009) |
|
|
This article may contain promotional material and other spam. Please remove any content which is not encyclopedic, and any promotional external links in accordance with the external links guideline. (February 2012) |
West Africa stretches from the Sahara Desert to the Atlantic Ocean. The region's musical heritage includes a variety of popular music styles, especially from the countries of Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Griots, wandering musicians and praise singers, are found throughout the region, and some musical instruments (such as the kora, xalam, djembe and talking drum) are found in a majority of West African countries.
Contents |
[edit] Music in Western Africa
The main types of drums in Western Africa are the Djembe and the Talking Drum. These drums are used as the most important parts of musical performances and ceremonies. They are easy to play, however the drummers, particularly the master drummer, play fast and hard rhythms. These drums play a very important part of life for the people and are used all the time in everyday life, especially in festivals and ceremonies such as marriage or birth. There are also other instruments. Most of these are string instruments similar to the guitar, introduced by European settlers. These include the Kora, Ngoni, and the Xalam.
[edit] Artists from Western Sahara
Some performers are tribespeople who have lived a nomadic existence, which is true of Mariem Hassan, a vocalist from the country of Western Sahara. Restless during occupation by imperialism; the 1960s saw revoluriona[clarification needed] die not just a few countries in Africa earn their independence, but feel an uncertainty later as various factions took over. One such was Western Sahara, which had previously been a Spanish colony, with its inhabitants speaking some Spanish, Arabic, and other dialects common to the region. Those who moved to refugee camps found that most often, it was women gaining stature as the storytellers of their past, their existence, and their hopes through their songs and performances.[1]
The Cape Verde Islands have homed and/or preserved[clarification needed] along the centuries, through being an intermediate port in the Atlantic, rhythms from Europe and the Americas, combined in very popular and rhythmic music. Many of the well-known Cape Verdian musicians have settled in Dakar, where they mingled further with musicians from West Africa.
[edit] References
- ^ Renton, Jamie (2005). "Mariem Hassan con Leyond". fROOTS magazine online. FNI Multimedia Publishing. http://www.cdroots.com/nube-hassan.html. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
[edit] External links
- Ghana Music News Ghana Music News and a collection of video clips, audio and profiles on Ghana artists
- Ghana Base Music Powering the Ghanaian Music Online.
- Live from Bamako, Mali Djembe drumming from West Africa and other
 |
This article about a music genre is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
