1.2 African Music

The concept of West African music being the main origin of black popular music in the West, however, cannot be refuted. Innovative lyricism and improvisation within black popular music genres are often linked to African features that were carried into the New World, extending into techniques of music such as conventions in instrument play and even the creations of new one (Oliver, 1990). As well as the secondary elements, some musical foundations have drawn from West African music such as a metronomic approach to metre and tempo, the use of call and response, which was later kept intact in late 19th century slave music and transferred to gospel, blues, R&B and finally to soul in the 1960s (Oliver, 1990). Instrumentally, many of the implements used in Africa were brought over and altered over time. The banjo, although of disputed origin, had a striking resemblance to the African kora, xalam (Oliver, 2012) and akonting, all stringed instruments from Western Africa with long characteristic necks and varying body shapes. There was also the mbira or “kalimba”, a thumb piano made of wood with attached metal keys. Its form is similar to that of a vibraphone, used predominately in jazz music, itself a close descendant of the “balafon”. Players of some of these instruments were often known as “griots” or “jali”. These performers would act as the storytellers and poets, enriching the listeners on the culture of Africa, even when they were transported over to the Americas as part of the slave trade. They formed the basis of the blues artists, telling their stories of pain and hardship and even further into the modern day, as rappers took on the mantle of the griots with their lyrical prose