Academic literature on the topic 'Mbaqanga'

Highlife is one of the myriad varieties of acculturated popular dance-music styles that have been emerging from Africa this century and which fuse African with Western (i.e. European and American) and islamic influences. Besides highlife, other examples include kwela, township jive and mbaqanga from South Africa, chimurenga from Zimbabwe, the benga beat from Kenya, taraab music from the East African coast, Congo jazz (soukous) from Central Africa, rai music from North Africa, juju and apala music from western Nigeria, makossa from the Cameroons and mbalax from Senegal.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-98).
As a bassist from Cape Town, I feel the necessity to investigate, analyze and document the bassists of years gone by who have been major contributors towards the advancement and conceptualization of the Cape Town and, more largely, South African bass-playing fraternity. Unfortunately several bassists have passed away prior to the commencement of this thesis. Two of these bassists are Sammy Maritz and Johnny Gertze who both performed with Abdullah Ibrahim (previously known as Dollar Brand). Therefore the motivation for this thesis is to capture the contributions of two bassists who are still alive and actively working in the South African music industry that are based in Cape Town, namely Gary Kriel and Spencer Mbadu. While there have been other bassists in Cape Town like Basil Moses, Charles Lazar and Philly Schilder who also have made contributions to the music industry and more so the bass playing fraternity in Cape Town, I feel that the contributions made by Mr Kriel and Mr Mbadu have a far greater significance for the reasons I outline below.

During the middle decades of the twentieth century, the exiling from South Africa of jazz musicians, including The Blue Notes, brought the discourses of local jazz, its performance culture and repertoires, to international attention. This process points to jazz’s global reach and raises questions about its adoption by differently constituted cultural subjects. Arjun Appadurai’s arguments about global homogenisation and heterogenisation come into play here, and have special significance today, when the study of jazz performance and history is increasingly part of the music education of young South Africans. Questions about who ‘owns’ jazz and what constitutes its authenticity loom large, as do questions about its global entanglement. The careers of The Blue Notes emerge from a background of South African syncretic musical performance; as such, they belong within the protracted history of African cultural engagement with European and American mediations of modernity. Among other issues, my thesis examines the use of jazz-influenced repertoires in the narration of cultural identities in postcolonial South Africa, under apartheid, and in exile.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of IsiZulu Namagugu at the University of Zululand, 2007.
Music plays a vital role in African cultures and permeates all the spheres of life. Music is part and parcel of culture in African societies. Music informs culture, and culture also informs music. The study of African music using the comparative approach was fraught with numerous pitfalls and shortcomings. Music was studied in isolation, which led to a misconstrued picture of African music. This study has thus employed the ethnomusicological approach. The ethnomusicological approach ensures that music is analysed taking into consideration the cultural context of music. This study looks at mbaqanga music as culture and in culture. The history of mbaqanga music is, thus, analysed taking into account all the factors that impacted on its evolution. The first chapter serves as a background to this study. It deals with the aims of this research and the definition of terms. It also deals briefly with the research methodology employed in this study. The second chapter focuses on a literature review and analytic models. It also looks at the emergence of ethnomusicology as a discipline. It focuses on music as culture and music in culture, and, moreover, it looks at the types of popular music. The third chapter deals with the historical background of mbaqanga music. Genres such as marabi and kwela music are briefly discussed. The political and socio-cultural context of mbaqanga music is discussed. The role of musicians and the media in the development of mbaqanga music is also discussed. The fourth chapter deals with research methodology in detail. This chapter also focuses on the details related to data collection. The fifth chapter deals with the analysis and interpretation of data. It looks at findings from interviews conducted and the analysis of song texts. The sixth chapter offers recommendations and a summary of the findings.

This study seeks to investigate the origin and development of the thinking, make up, evolution, meaning, impact, essence of originality, and attempts to reclaim the true identity of African music of South Africa from 1963 to date by Philip Tabane through his concept of Malombo Music. This study introduces Philip Tabane’s biographical background, and sketches out the socio political milieu in which he has had to do creative work, maps out stages of development of Malombo music, and investigates how media was bent on shaping a particular public opinion about Malombo music. The latter is juxtaposed against Philip Tabane’s own philosophy of music making. The research further investigates what Tabane’s own definition of Malombo is. Primary and secondary sources of data are consulted, including a collection of primary data drawn from continuous dialogue with Dr Philip Tabane himself from 1990 to 2008, and getting to do media scan of public statements made in interviews with journalists. One on one discussions were held with Dr Philip Tabane in order to understand and verify popular views held about him and about his work. Secondary sources included newspaper articles, journals, policy documents, and internet survey. Findings of this research are a record of Philip Tabane’s life, discography; philosophy; compositions; key debates on the management of heritage; rights and ownership of intellectual property in South Africa; analysis of Tabane’s compositional and stylistic format; Tabane’s national and international profile; and suggestions for the development of true national heritage and culture. Above all the research findings will help in providing necessary understanding of South African music history, especially future challenges on concept development in music, ownership and rights, recommended amendments to the existing legislative framework that governs broadcast and copyrights, as well as the very history of one of the least celebrated but honoured son of the soil, Dr Philip Nchipi Tabane. Additional information available on a CD, DVD stored at the Merensky Library on Level 3 Copyright
Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2010.
Music
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South Africa possesses one of the richest popular music traditions in the world - from marabi to mbaqanga, from boeremusiek to bubblegum, from kwela to kwaito. Yet the risk that future generations of South Africans will not know their musical roots is very real. Of all the recordings made here since the 1930s, thousands have been lost for ever, for the powers-that-be never deemed them worthy of preservation. And if one peruses the books that exist on South African popular music, one still finds that their authors have on occasion jumped to conclusions that were not as foregone as they had assumed. Yet the fault lies not with them, rather in the fact that there has been precious little documentation in South Africa of who played what, or who recorded what, with whom, and when. This is true of all music-making in this country, though it is most striking in the musics of the black communities. Beyond Memory: Recording the History, Moments and Memories of South African Music is an invaluable publication because it offers a first-hand account of the South African music scene of the past decades from the pen of a man, Max Thamagana Mojapelo, who was situated in the very thick of things, thanks to his job as a deejay at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. This book - astonishing for the breadth of its coverage - is based on his diaries, on interviews he conducted and on numerous other sources, and we find in it not only the well-known names of recent South African music but a countless host of others whose contribution must be recorded if we and future generations are to gain an accurate picture of South African music history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.