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South African Music

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The music of South Africa, from Zulu and Xhosa choral and drum traditions to the township styles that grew under apartheid: marabi, kwela, mbaqanga, isicathamiya and the electronic dance forms that followed. Close vocal harmony and a walking bass are constants.

South Africa · emerged Ancient times · peak 1950s-1990s

Also called: music of south africa

History

Mission-school choirs, mine-hostel a cappella competitions and shebeen pianists produced a string of urban genres from the 1920s on; the anti-apartheid era made them political and international, and the 1990s brought kwaito and house.

What it sounds like

Close vocal harmony and choral tradition
Township dance styles
Pennywhistle, accordion and guitar in the older forms
Political weight of the apartheid era

Beneath it: cape jazz, isicathamiya, mbube, township jive, tsonga disco

Beside it: kwela, marabi, mbaqanga