African Music Links

Africa Fete Tour '99 (prod. Kennedy Center & Palm Pictures) an annual tour celebrating African music, art and culture, featuring major bands from the African continent: http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi/events/music/fete.html
African Performances/Events in Depth:
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi/events/kcevents.html

Africa on Roots World provides information about African musicians, as well as interviews and reviews of recordings:
http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/africa.html
The site includes Village Pulse Outpost: "Village Pulse is a recording label that was established to preserve recordings of traditional music. The first Village Pulse titles present styles of West African drum music that have been largely unavailable to the outside world": http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/villagepulse/

Africa South of the Sahara - Music (Stanford Univ Libraries): excellent annotated selection of internet resources:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/music.html

African Music Archive (Dr. Wolfgang Bender, Institute of Ethnology and African Studies, Johannes-Gutenberg Univ., Mainz, Germany) of African music and musicology opened in 1991: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bender/
...See Dr. Bender's essay on the history of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service (SLBS): http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bender/farewell_queen.html
...Other African Music Resources Online: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bender/ama_links.html
...Websites related to African Music: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bender/ama_links.html#afrimuswebsites
...Even More Websites related to African Music: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bender/ama_links.html#moafrimuswebsites

African Music Encyclopedia: Music from Africa and the African Diaspora (Janet Planet), presents photos and biographies of musicians, glossary of African styles of music, list of distributors: http://africanmusic.org/
...Related African links: http://africanmusic.org/links.html

Afro-Caribbean Musics (Fabrice Gaillard, 1994-1999):
http://www.mediaport.net/Music/index.en.html
...searchable, e.g., by African countries: http://www.mediaport.net/Music/Pays/index.en.html

Afropop Worldwide, information & resources related to PRI's (Public Radio International) weekly series showcasing the contemporary musical cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe: http://www.afropop.org:85/
...and visit Milennium Stage - AfroPop Party, hosted by Georges Collinet of Afropop Worldwide, and informational links: "In recognition of the profound global influence of the musical cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora, World Music Productions has chosen as its mission to promote understanding and appreciation of the contemporary musical cultures of Africa and the Diaspora, to inspire the inclusion of these musical cultures in media and education, and to bring the music to more diverse audiences, thus building a larger, better-informed constituency for the artists and their musical creativity":
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi/events/music/afropop.html

Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University offers ethnographic sound archives of "vocal and instrumental music, folktales, interviews, and oral history, as well as videotapes, photographs, and manuscripts," including recordings by Melville Herskovits and Harold Courlander, the Lee Nichols Collection of interviews with African authors, and the Dennis Duerden Collection of lectures, interviews, and readings by black poets and playwrights: http://www.indiana.edu/~libarchm/

[Dr. Daniel] Avorgbedor's Page (School of Music, Ohio State Univ.-Columbus) links to syllabi for his courses on ethnomusicology, contemporary African composers, performance practices in African music, music cultures of the world and Research in Progress pages on the history of Halo (music-drama of the Anlo-Ewe, Ghana): http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/blst/dka/avor.html

Cora Connection features "the rich music traditions of West Africa": http://www.coraconnection.com/
Of special interest to Hum 211 study of Keita: The Heritage of the Griot and African praise songs of West African cultures is the 21-string Kora, one of the traditional musical instruments Mandinka (or Mande) "jalis or griots, traditional historians, praise singers and master musicians," play "to accompany their epics and songs." This index site includes a brief introduction to "West African Manding Music"; the Bambara (see Hum 211 African Film on Yeelen), Mandinka, and Sousou are subgroups of the Manding peoples. Follow the links to "What is a Kora?" and "Tuning the Kora," with illustrations, and more links about the lives of kora musicians (with photos).

Dandemutande: Zimbabwean Music & Culture Worldwide offers articles from Dandemutande magazine, a calendar of Zimbabwe music and cultural events worldwide, information on performers, teachers, instrument makers; links to related web sites, a mail order catalog of books, music, film, art; plus a subscription email list for announcements and discussion on Zimbabwean music and related topics: http://www.dandemutande.com

East African Popular Music (Dr. Douglas Paterson) focuses on popular music of Kenya, Tanzania, Zaire/Congolese, with links to articles, annotated discographies (which Paterson prepared for The Rough Guide to World Music on Kenya and Tanzania), and more, plus some audio clips: http://hometown.aol.com/dpaterson/eamusic.htm

Foundation Course in African Dance Drumming, the wonderful site of C.K Ladzekpo, director of the African music program at the University of California at Berkeley, performer, choreographer, composer, and member of a famous family of African musicians and dancers who traditionally serve as lead drummers and composers among the Anlo-Ewe people of southeastern Ghana in West Africa. This site includes cultural and musical information: An Introduction to Anlo-Ewe Culture and History, Drums and Drumming, Rhythmic Principles, and the Sub-Saharan Dance-Drumming Culture. http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/~ladzekpo/Foundation.html

International Music Archives is "an educational resource providing extensive information about the music of our planet.... a starting point for further exploration of music of that given country or region," with "information about countries and regions and their musical styles, plus related sound samples and photographs": http://www.eyeneer.com/World/index.html
...For example, Musical Instruments of Africa: http://www.eyeneer.com/World/Af/Instruments/index.html

An Introduction to African Music: 100 CD's (Afrique en Créations-Paris,1997), in French & English: Scroll down to get to the menu of English language version links and find general orientations in the Preamble and Music Regions of Africa, or search the selected CD's by country, artist/group, CD title or label, style or type of music, instrument, and language:
http://www.mediaport.net/AfricArt/100CD/index_principal.html
...For example, you can look up The Indestructible Beat of Soweto (by diverse South African artists, combining the musical styles of zulu traditional, mbaqanga, [m]bube in the languages of zulu, xhosa, and sotho-tswana).

Marabi (Kennedy Center's African Odyssey Interactive), sometimes called "the national music of South Africa,...refers to a music genre and culture developed in the slumyards of South Africa":
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi/events/music/marabi.html

Mbira (Solomon Murugu) is "a resource for people around the world who have an interest in Mbira, Marimba and Chimurenga styles of music from the indigenous cultures of Zimbabwe." Topics such as Shona and Ndebele customs, Shona language and literature, traditions and beliefs as they relate to Mbira music are also discussed:
http://www.tiac.net/users/smurungu/home.html
...At this site you'll learn more about the music, oral arts, musical artists, traditional instruments, and culture of the Shona, the people of Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe). An excerpt: "For the Shona people and the world at large, the Shona ancestors sustained and left a complex, intriguing and invaluable oral tradition. Their invention, the mbira, more than a thousand years ago marks a significant contribution not only to the culture and religion of the Shona people, but also to the history of musical instruments."

Music of Africa (AfricaOnline): "Discover tarabu, Swahili wedding music of Zanzibar, the ngoma and mtindo of Tanzania, highlife music of Ghana, Cameroon's makossa, many worlds of Moroccan music and the mbira legends of Zimbabwe" and more: http://www.africaonline.com/AfricaOnline/covermusic.html

Shumba - Marimba Band, eight musicians from Eugene, Oregon, who play traditional Shona and contemporary music of Zimbabwe, including audio song sampler for those with sound cards, an email list, and links to many African music sites: http://www.efn.org/~shumba

African Links Table of Contents
Humanities 211 - Cultures & Literatures of Africa: 
Instructor:  Cora Agatucci
cagatucci@cocc.edu

You are here:  AFRICAN MUSIC LINKS
URL of this webpage: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/linksmusic.htm
Last Updated: 26 July 2003