Dancing to the (African) Beat - Jaime

Each tribe in Africa has its own song. If you go to Africa to visit a tribe, you better be ready to dance and (at least try) to sing along with their songs. The music is full of energy and is most often used as a greeting or welcome, or for tribal and ceremonial rituals. The countries and regions in Africa have many different languages using many different tones. These tones will reflect in the kinds of music you hear as you travel around Africa.



If anyone has ever heard African music being played, or participated in making the music, you know there is a lot of beat. Percussion instruments, along with voices, are the most widely used instruments in Africa. They use all kinds of drums, rattles, bells, horns, conch shells, friction sticks, and of course their voices. Their music is not written down, but there is much tradition and lots of singing all the time so it is easy to remember.

Where there is such great beats and music, there has to be dancing. African’s use their music much in the same way as they use dance, for celebration and unity. Dance styles also vary from region to region. Dances are preformed for both spiritual and social purposes, and it is hard to differentiate between the two, sometimes the purposes combine. There are often masquerade dances preformed to symbolize nature, the dead, or spirits. In this next video we find a traditional African dance done by some men.




There is some African music that may sound familiar to us. An example of African music I am sure we are all familiar with is in the beginning of “The Circle of Life” from “The Lion King:”
“Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba Sithi uhm ingonyama…” This is not a greeting they use, but they are taking about a lion coming. One of my favorite bands, Dispatch, wrote a song called "Elias." In this song there is an example of a typical greeting, "Coz e wah he" which in Zimbabwe means, "Are you strong?" The reply to this is, "I am strong if you are strong."