Music of South Africa

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 music, south and/or africa:

    Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
    Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,
    Fading in music.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.
    Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)

    I have a fair amount of faith that women won’t sit back and allow South Africa to become a totally male-dominated new society. The women in South Africa have shown that they are strong, and I think they will make their voices heard.
    Paula Hathorn (b. c. 1962)