THE GUITAR IN AFRICA BY JOHN COLLINS April 2004
(1, 100 words)
CD notes for the ‘Bana y’Africa CD released by the Africa New Music label of Toronto in 2004, a compilation of 20 songs that includes the Canadian based African artists/bands Afro Connexion, ZPN, Sibongile Nene, Madagascar Slim, Fojeba, Njacko Backo, Siècle 21, Hussein Said, Senegalese Traditional Troupe and Yoshi Lumanda
It is the guitar, of all the western instruments, that has been most thoroughly indigenised in Africa. Some have suggested the instrument was first introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century – but there is no evidence of this. The popularity of the guitar in Africa probably corresponded with the widespread 19th century adoption of this originally Spanish instrument in Europe and America, and was subsequently introduced to Africa during the late 19th century in a variety of possible ways. As an instrument of the salon culture of the middle-classes, by visiting miners and prospectors, through visiting seamen, touring African-American minstrel groups and by freed Brazilian slaves and Cuban political exiles.
Whatever the route, the initial Africanisation of the guitar was carried out by the Kru or Kroo people of southern Liberia who, because of their maritime experience as long distance fishermen, had been employed on European sailing ships from the late 18th century. Onboard ship they played the light portable instruments of fellow sailors (accordions, harmonicas, penny whistles, etc) – and in the case of the guitar they developed a distinct West African two-finger plucking technique and seminal riffs and songs such as Mainline, Fireman and Dagomba Wiya. These they disseminated in their 19th and early 20 century Kroo-Town settlements which they established in the port towns of the Atlantic seaboard of Africa as far south as Angola. This Kru style therefore became one of the foundations of many early West and Central African guitar styles: the Maringa and Assiko (Ashiko) music of Sierra Leone, The Osbisaaba and Yaa Amponsah styles of Highlife music of Ghana, the Native Blues and Juju music of Nigeria, the Makossa of the Cameroons and the early ‘dry’ guitar styles of the two Congos (Kinshasa and Brazaville).
In Ghana this coastal style was first recorded in the 1920’s (by George Wiliam Aingo and Jacob Sam/Kwame Asare) and spread inland during the 1930’s where it was influenced by the music of the local seprewa harp-lute, so producing a distinct regional rustic style called Odonson (or Akan Blues or Palmwine Music). In Nigeria this regional variety was called Native Blues and during the 1930’s tens of thousands of ‘native records’ of this Ghanaian/Nigerian West African ‘Blues’ style were being released in West Africa by western record companies.
In Central Africa the coastal two-finger guitar music was introduced by Krus and by five thousand English-speaking West African ‘coastmen’ recruited as contract workers by King Leopold of the Belgian Congo from 1885-1908. Initially this West African finger picking guitar style was introduced to the Central African port of Mutadi, but later it became absorbed into the Lingala sung and rumba based Congo Jazz (or Soukous), pioneered in the 1940’s by Dondo Daniels and Antoine Wendo (both influenced by West African seaman) and in the 1950’s by Le Grand Kalle, Tabuley, Dr Nico and Franco. These guitar techniques were also taken by West African coastmen/seamen one thousand miles into Central Africa via the navigatable Congo River to Shaba/Katanga Province, where (together with local hand-piano influences) they influenced the Swahili style of acoustic guitar music music of the eastern Congo popularised in the 1940’s by Mwenda Jean Bosco and Losta Abelo
In East and southern Africa the main early guitar style of the 1930’s to 50’s were based on western strumming or vamping techniques (influenced by recording artists like the American ‘singing cowboy’ Jimmy Rogers) and were played by Fundi Kunde and the Rhino Boys of Kenya, and Zimbawean/South African Zulu and Ndebele guitarists such as George Sibanda and John Benghu (wh were also influenced by traditional mouth-bow music). However in the 1950’s the eastern Congolese Swahili variety of two-finger picking began to influence things. In Kenya this fused with the Luo harp to create the Sukuti style of fast guitar picking that replaced the older vamping style. In Malawi it influenced artists like the Kachamba Brothers - and further south Zulu/Ndebele labour migrant guitarists used finger picking (Zulu ‘utikpa’ style) for their working-class Maskanda guitar music. Shona guitarists also went on to absorb influences from the local mbira hand-piano, a development consolidated in the 1970’s Chimurenga music (Liberation) music of Thomas Mapfumo and Oliver Mutuzudzi.
Both Chimurenga and current Maskanda are played on electric guitars, nevertheless the older African finger-picking techniques, as well as modern plectrum ones, are used. This combination of old to new also occurs with the other electric African guitar styles For instance Sukuti techniques became absorbed into the Kenyan Benga Beat electric guitar music of the 1970’s. Likewise, Central African Soukous bands from the late 1960’s combined three interlocking guitars together, one being a finger-picked one. Most West African guitar bands that went electric from the 1960’s also retained a finger-picking guitar, whether in the case of Ghanaian and Nigerian highlife groups (E.K.Nyame, Kakaiku, Onyina, Victor Uwaifo, Oriental Brothers, etc) Juju music (Ayinde Bakare, I.K.Dairo, Ebenezer Obey, Sonny Ade) Sierra Leone Maringa (Afro-Nationals, Sabanoh 75) or the Makossa of the Cameroons (Nelle Eyoum of the Los Camaroes, Misse Ngoh’s Los Calvinos).
It should also be pointed out that in recent years some African guitarists have moved away from electric sounds and returned to their acoustic roots: like Francis Bebey of the Cameroons, Koo Nimo of Ghana, Pierre Akendengue of Gabon and S.E. Rogie of Sierra Leone
Although the music from West African Francophone countries by Youssou N’Dour, Salif Keita and Oumou Sangare are currently very popular with World Music fans, it should be noted that the development of a distinct local popular music and corresponding guitar styles only began in these countries after independence in the 1960’s. Before that the French ‘direct rule’ colonial policy of either being purely French or purely indigenous prevented or slowed down the blending of musical cultures that is so much a feature elsehere in Africa. Before independence (beginning in Guinea in 1958) the popular music of Francophone West Africa was mainly Cuban Sons, Rumbas, Boleros and Chachacha’s sung in Spanish. However the first generation of independence leaders (Sekou Toure of Guinea, Keita of Mali and Senghor of Senegal ) encouraged Africanisation and Negritude - and as a result local popular music styles (mbalax, ‘electro-griot’, ‘Afro-mandingo’, Wussulu, etc) rapidly evolved. This involved crossovers between the western guitars and traditional griot/jali/hunters instruments such as the kora harp-lute, balafon-xylophone and ngoni/nkoni lute. Some outstanding examples of the resulting distinct Francophone West African guitar players includes some members of the Djabate griot family of Guinea (Sidikiba and his sons Kerfala and Sekou), Kante Manfila (a Guinean who played with Mali’s Salif Keita), Ali FakaToure of northern Mali and Baaba Maal from northern Senegal.
