East Africa
The East African musicological region, which includes the islands of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius, Comor and the Seychelles, has been open to the influence of Arabian and Iranian music since the Shirazi Era. In the south of the region Swahili culture has adopted instruments such as the dumbek, oud and qanun - even the Indian tabla drums. The kabosy, also called the mandoliny, a small guitar of Madagascar, like the Comorian gabusi, may take its name from the Arabian qanbūs. Taarab, a modern genre popular in Tanzania and Kenya, is said to take both its name and its style from Egyptian music as formerly cultivated in Zanzibar. Latterly there have been European influences also: the guitar is popular in Kenya, the contredanse, mazurka and polka are danced in the Seychelles.
Read more about this topic: Sub-Saharan African Music Traditions
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“The very nursery tales of this generation were the nursery tales of primeval races. They migrate from east to west, and again from west to east; now expanded into the “tale divine” of bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
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How can I turn from Africa and live?”
—Derek Walcott (b. 1930)