West African and Caribbean Music: Highlife, Afrobeat, Reggae
West African and Caribbean Music
Mami Wata – Kwaa Mensah, Ghana. West African pop Palmwine – Ghanaian highlife and Nigerian juju music. Two-finger guitar style of Liberian Kru sailors, (mostly Caribbean) and local musical elements. Mami Wata is a water spirit.
Taxi Driver – Bobby Benson (1950s) Nigeria. Classic in West Africa, Golden Age of dance-band highlife in Nigeria. Jazz swing instrumentation and big band Caribbean rhythms (calypso). Benson – multi-instrumentalist, composer. His Trumpeter – veteran Victor Olaiya, was Fela Kuti’s mentor in highlife.
Viva Nigeria – Fela Kuti (theme of unity). 1969. Nigeria. Highlife-jazz style. U.S. tour and because of Biafran civil war in Nigeria financial support from the Nigerian federal government. After political radicalization, Fela was embarrassed by this song. The song a repeated two-chord.
Superbad – James Brown (1970) USA. Brown “funk,” built on jazz, soul, and rhythm n’ blues. Influenced Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat style.
Zombie – Fela Kuti and Afrika 70 (1976) Nigeria. Mature Afrobeat style. Best-selling and most popular song to date. Nigerian military like zombies killing and dying for bosses. Fela sings in pidgin-English, a hybrid vernacular speech style in Nigeria.
Keep Your Eyes on the Road – Reggie Rockstone (1998). Ghana. The first true “hiplife” song. Imitates 1970s guitar highlife song, with heavy bass and a hip-hop beat. He raps in English, references to things that are Ghanaian.
Kwame Nkrumah – Obrafour da Executioner 1999 Ghana. New hiplife with older traditions for inspiration, like poetry of Akan people prayers and proverbs recited in honor of the ancestors. The rhythm is kpanlogo.
16 Years – Mzbel, feat. Castro 2005. From 16 Years. Most Popular hiplife tracks of 2005-2006, (old man say yes to free dress code without harassment). Mzbel raps in Akan and pidgin-English.
Bargie – The Jamaican Calypsonians. Classic mento song (often lighthearted). (drums, maracas, guitar, banjo, and marimbula) 4 groups, with emphases “4” and “1.” off-beat of the guitar and banjo, counted “1 and-2-and 3 and-4-and.”
Ka-Boo-Da-Ba – The Skatalites 1966. (Instrumental ska). guitar, upright bass, piano, trumpets, trombones, and saxophones. Ska’s shuffle rhythm (downbeats onto the “upbeats) format typical of jazz, in which 1) “thematic head” horns, 2) improvised “solos,” 3) the ensemble repeating the head. 007 (Shanty Town) – Desmond Dekker. 1966. Genre Rocksteady, “rudeboy” subculture. Similar to ska, but tempo is slower, vocals are emphasized. Influenced by agent 007 and Ocean’s 11.
Trenchtown Rock – Bob Marley and the Wailers. 1971/1973. genre “roots” reggae. Slower than ska and rock steady, instrumentation is reduced to electric bass, guitar, keyboard, and drumset. Reggae vocal oriented, doesn’t feature instrumental improvisation. The song Lee “Scratch” Perry. Lyrics Rastafarianism, identification healing effects of music.
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown – Augustus Pablo and King Tubby 1976. Raggae’s subgenre dub. It is King Tubby’s remix of Jacob Miller’s “Baby I Love You,” Echo to great effect here, stretching out Pablo’s melodic. The term “riddim” refers to a unique bass and drum composition.