I follow the trend of music to recreate African songs: “Miss Kedike”

I follow the trend of music to recreate African songs: “Miss Kedike”

 

The music of Nigeria includes many kinds of folk and popular music, some of which are known worldwide. Styles of folk music are related to the multitudes of ethnic groups in the country, each with their own techniques, instruments, and songs. Little is known about the country's music history prior to European contact, although bronze carvings dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries have been found depicting musicians and their instruments. The largest ethnic groups are the Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. Traditional music from Nigeria and throughout Africa is almost always functional; in other words, it is performed to mark a ritual such as a wedding or funeral and not to achieve artistic goals.  Although some Nigerians, especially children and the elderly play instruments for their own amusement, solo performance is otherwise rare. Music is closely linked to agriculture, and there are restrictions on, for example, which instruments can be played during different parts of the growing season.

Work songs are a common type of traditional Nigerian music. They help to keep the rhythm of workers in fields, river canoes and other fields. Women use complex rhythms in housekeeping tasks, such as pounding yams to highly ornamented music. In the northern regions, farmers work together on each other's farms and the host is expected to supply musicians for his neighbours.

The issue of musical composition is also highly variable. The Hwana, for example, believe that all songs are taught by the peoples' ancestors, while the Tiv give credit to named composers for almost all songs, and the Efik name individual composers only for secular songs. In many parts of Nigeria, musicians are allowed to say things in their lyrics that would otherwise be perceived as offensive.

The most common format for music in Nigeria is the call-and-response choir, in which a lead singer and a chorus interchange verses, sometimes accompanied by instruments that either shadow the lead text or repeat and ostinato vocal phrase. The southern area features complex rhythms and solo players using melody instruments, while the north more typically features polyphonic wind ensembles. The extreme north region is associated with monodic (i.e., single-line) music with an emphasis on drums, and tends to be more influenced by Islamic music.

Epic poetry is found in parts of Nigeria, and its performance is always viewed as musical in nature. Blind itinerant performers, sometimes accompanying themselves with a string instrument, are known for reciting long poems of unorthodox Islamic text among the Kanuri and Hausa. The Ozidi Saga found in the Niger Delta is a well-known epic that takes seven days to perform and utilises a narrator, a chorus, percussion, mime and dance.

 

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 western music. The term "afropop" (also styled afro-pop or afro pop) is sometimes used to refer to contemporary African pop music. The term does not refer to a specific style or sound, but is used as a general term for African popular music.

Over the years, pop music has gone from primarily groups and bands, to more solo artists, to collaborations between different artists—across genres, across generations, across races. This type of collaboration is a huge trend in music today. Paul McCartney, Rihanna, and Kanye’s hit collaboration on this year’s list above is a great example.

I think this pretty accurately reflects the way our culture has shifted over the years. We recognize the value of generative differences—the melding of diverse people and ideas to make something new and stronger than before. We appreciate these types of differences in a way we didn’t before, as the following chart makes especially apparent:

So, although youths these days like music with a little more profanity than in the past, we’re experiencing a historic mixing and collaboration between musicians of different races. This reflects society’s increased appreciation of diversity, which is an awesome thing. It’s led to awesome music, too.

As I write this, I’m listening to electro producer Madeon on a vinyl record player, piped through Bluetooth to a Vizio sound bar. It’s a mashup representative of today’s culture: fueled and changed by technology, spinning on a wheel of nostalgia, embracing blends of things we used to think didn’t belong together.

 

It looks like we’ve gotten more comfortable with profanity and substance use over the decades, but sex and violence haven’t really increased—at least in top radio hits. (One of the things this analysis doesn’t show is the proliferation of genres over the years. In the Internet era, we have a lot more music in a lot more categories, so there certainly is a larger volume of questionable content out there; it’s just not popular in an outsize way.)

These charts are interesting, but I think we can learn something much more important about society through the music we prize that has nothing to do with lyrics. Musicians themselves—and the way they work together—say something about our culture. For instance, here’s the breakdown of top artists by type:

2000’s: Adult Contemporary and R&B:
Outkast, Linkin Park, Cold Play, Nsync, Backstreet Boys, U2, Incubus, Will Smith, Sum41, Kid Rock, The Killers, Thirty Seconds To Mars, Modest Mouse, Matchbox 20, System of a Down, The Black Eyed Peas, Smash Mouth, Flo Rida, AFI, Jason Mraz, Creed, Blink-182, Gorillaz, Beyoncé, Nelly, Beck, Eminem, Santana, Train, Missy Elliot, The All American Rejects, Usher, Papa Roach, Daft Punk, Kanye West, Nickelback, Everclear, Panic!!! At the Disco, POD, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jimmy Eat World.

 

A Look at Music Trends in 2016

So if 2016 really is the year of rap, then which rappers are driving a cultural shift towards the genre and away from pop and country? First and foremost, there's Drake. The Toronto MC has 24 Hot 100 songs to his name in 2016 alone, not even counting an array of guest features that have landed on the charts too. Kanye West, Fetty Wap, and Future are other top contributors from rap with upwards of five solo Hot 100 hits apiece this year. And it's not just established acts getting in on the fun; there are fourteen hip-hop artists with Hot 100 hits in 2016 that have never charted before.

To explore the data by year, we've created this interactive bubble chart. In its preset format, each bubble represents a song that has charted thus far in 2016. You can toggle the year parameter to change the year shown. Again, click on a bubble to pull up the corresponding song in the Spotify player. 

 

A final point: 2016 has provided a little bit of music nostalgia. Even as pop, rap, and country have collectively occupied 86% of the Hot 100 spots this year, there have been flashes of music from bygone eras. David Bowie has had four songs touch the Hot 100 in 2016, more than any other active rock band can claim. Then there's Prince, the Minneapolis icon who died in April, who has eight Hot 100 songs to his credit this year. That's tied for the most among everyone not named Drake or Beyonce. Though rock and soul have fallen out of the mainstream, Americans continue to hold onto artists from each genre's peak years.

Kudos: Google
Source of article: Google
Created by: Ebuka Peters