Music Of South Africa
The South African music scene includes both popular (jive) and folk forms. Pop styles are based on four major sources, Zulu isicathamiya singing and harmonic mbaqanga.
Christian missions provided the first organized musical training in the country, bringing to light many of the modern country's earliest musicians, including Enoch Sontonga, who wrote the national anthem Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika. By the end of the nineteenth century, South African cities like Cape Town were large enough to attract foreign musicians, especially American ragtime players. African American spirituals were popularized in the 1890s by Orpheus McAdoo's Jubilee Singers.
Read more about Music Of South Africa: The 1960s, South African Music Today, Neo-traditional Styles
Famous quotes containing the words south africa, music, south and/or africa:
“I dont have any doubts that there will be a place for progressive white people in this country in the future. I think the paranoia common among white people is very unfounded. I have always organized my life so that I could focus on political work. Thats all I want to do, and thats all that makes me happy.”
—Hettie V., South African white anti-apartheid activist and feminist. As quoted in Lives of Courage, ch. 21, by Diana E. H. Russell (1989)
“As I define it, rock & roll is dead. The attitude isnt dead, but the music is no longer vital. It doesnt have the same meaning. The attitude, though, is still very much aliveand it still informs other kinds of music.”
—David Byrne (b. 1952)
“The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.”
—James Baldwin (19241987)
“What is Africa to me:
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?”
—Countee Cullen (19031946)