When Western missionaries arrived in Africa in the 19th century, they disallowed the use of native musical instruments in ...

Growing up in the West African country of Mali, Bassekou Kouyate recalls the tradition of the Ngoni running through the veins of his culture since he was a child. An instrument dating back nearly ...

Chisseko Kondowe is homesick, so he’s trying to bring the sounds of the African bush to South Florida. “I feel like I’m creating my own little tribe,” he says. Kondowe is the guiding force behind ...

Salif Keita has been called the "golden voice of Mali" and a pioneer of the music called Afro-pop. He was born of royalty -- a direct descendant of Mali's 13th-century founding father -- but was ...

A CD series called Congotronics showcases urban traditional bands in Kinshasa, Congo. The first Congotronics CD was a hit in Europe and the United States, especially popular with DJs who work the ...

Hugh Tracey came to southern Africa in the 1920s to become a tobacco farmer but ended up compiling the largest known archive of traditional African music, recording performers from Congo to Zimbabwe ...

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Photo: Pritesh Naithoo GET MUSICAL: Local musician Pops Mohammed teams up with The Orbit Jazz CLub to conduct children's masterclasses, where children are taught how to play traditional African ...

The University of South Africa, Unisa, made history with the inaugural Unisa African Music Festival hosted on 26 and 27 September 2025 at its Muckleneuk Campus in Pretoria. The two-day event brought ...

Joseph Kamaru, the performer who records under the name KMRU, admits that being a composer of ambient electronic music is not an obvious path to fame and fortune in his home country of Kenya. “It has ...