Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.
Makeba during a performance
The American singer Harry Belafonte met Makeba in London and adopted her as his protégé.
Makeba in 1969
Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie in Calvados, France, 1991
African popular music, like African traditional music, is vast and varied. Most contemporary genres of African popular music build on cross-pollination with Western popular music. Many genres of popular music like blues, jazz, salsa, zouk, and rumba derive to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken to the Americas by enslaved Africans. These rhythms and sounds have subsequently been adapted by newer genres like rock, and rhythm and blues. Likewise, African popular music has adopted elements, particularly the musical instruments and recording studio techniques of the Western music industry. The term does not refer to a specific style or sound but is used as a general term for African popular music.
South African , isicathamiya, choral vocal group Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds pictured in 1941- most famed for their song "Mbube" , the origin of The Lion King's song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
Orchestra Baobab
A Congolese rumba group performing in Léopoldville
Abeti Masikini is one of the African female artists who revolutionized African music with her unique blend of rhythms.
