Music of African Indépendence

The title of Dorsch’s article is inspired by the Congolese song “Indépendance ChaCha” , considered to be the first pan-African hit because it expressed the euphoria of the moment felt across the continent. Not only do its lyrics evoke the round table where Belgian authorities and Congolese representatives reached an agreement on how to manage the independence process, but the song’s upbeat melody also gives an idea of the euphoria of the moment, of the hope for a freer society.

Implicitly, then, the music of the independence era also tells of dashed hopes.

Joseph Kabasele (le Grand Kalle) performs this song composed and written on 20 January 1960, then performed on 27 January at the Plaza Hotel in Brussels. A round table had been organised between the Belgian authorities and Congolese political movements to negotiate Congo’s independence. Two Congolese groups – Ok Jazz and African Jazz – had merged and were invited to perform in Brussels.

The Black Atlantic as a sound matrix

Caribbean music and Africa: an ancient circulation.

Early in colonial times, the twin capitals of Leopoldville and Brazzaville, on either side of the Congo River, were a melting pot of the most varied cultural influences. In West Africa, too, people were already familiar with Caribbean music, particularly from the French West Indies in colonial times. Together with European and local influences, it has left its mark on urban dance music. Caribbean music in general, and Cuban music in particular, has been listened to and played in both the Belgian Congo and the French Congo, as well as in neighbouring countries, since the 1930s. Following the Cuban revolution of 1959 and the independence of most African countries, the idea spread that common interests united the South, i.e. the nations exploited by colonialism and imperialism. This idea, which essentially emerged at the Bandung Conference (1955), was later to influence the Non-Aligned Movement as well. In concrete terms, exchanges also took place between Cuba and various African countries: Malian musicians, for example, were trained in Cuba in the 1960s; many of them are still performing today, and some are still among the most important representatives of the Malian music scene. West Africa should be seen as part of the sphere of cultural exchange described by Paul Gilroy as the “Black Atlantic” – and not just in the field of music. With varying intensity, the transatlantic influence has left a distinctive imprint on styles such as goombay/gumbe and “palm wine” in West African countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Liberia.

Highlife : the music of an urban elite.

In Ghana and Nigeria, “highlife” grew out of this type of music. As the name suggests, it is an elitist musical style that celebrates the dolce vita enjoyed by the urban upper class both before and after independence. Highlife also had a decisive influence on the juju and fuji styles popular among the Yoruba ethnic group. So it’s not surprising that “Ghana Freedom” , the song that accompanied Ghana’s independence, was composed by the famous highlife musician E.T. Mensah, whose band played not only American swing-influenced highlife, but also calypso and Congolese-Cuban tunes. Thanks to education and migration – both to African colonial cities and to colonial metropolises abroad – urban elites and societies had emerged in African capitals. They aspired to a form of musical expression that, unlike the musical styles of their essentially rural regions of origin, would reflect their vision of life. Those who were religiously inclined turned to singing Christian hymns. Otherwise, this attitude to life was most often expressed through Western music – jazz and Caribbean music, particularly Cuban. Colonial officials introduced shellac records from the Caribbean, and African bands copied Caribbean styles such as beguine, calypso, gumbay, mambo or son.

Nation and Indépendances : music as a political tool

African nationalism and its musical expressions.

African nationalism was expressed through songs with patriotic or revolutionary lyrics evoking the collective task of moving the nascent nation forward; these included songs praising the respective rulers and referring to the past glory of the pre-colonial kingdoms – a glory to be restored. While the melodies too often drew on motifs from pre-colonial or folk music, the instruments and rhythms showed a decidedly Latin American influence. In the music of the independence era, songs to the glory of historical figures such as Mansa Sunjata Keïta were no longer accompanied solely by the kora, ngoni and balafon, but also by congas, saxophone and maracas. In West Africa, there seemed to be little concern that these transatlantic styles might not strike a chord with the local population or fuel enthusiasm for the nation.

Cultural policies and the construction of a national stage.

Guinea, which under Sékou Touré had gained its independence relatively early (1958), paved the way in terms of cultural policy for West African states such as Senegal and Mali, then later Gambia and Cameroon, regardless of any political differences. All these states endeavoured to merge regional styles into a national form through regional competitions and the creation of national ensembles.

National music scenes have been able to emerge thanks to government support. In the process, regional and national competitions gave artists a sense of being part of a new entity that was no longer defined along ethnic, regional, colonial or religious lines, but along national lines.

Certain ethnic or linguistic groups were deliberately over-represented in the music played by national orchestras. In Guinea, for example, the Malinkés, to whom President Touré belonged, were much more markedly represented than others, particularly the Peuls. This over-representation of certain ethnic groups in the development of national popular music is not a feature unique to West Africa, as Chirambo (2009) well illustrates in his description of politicised cultural populism in Malawi.

The tradition of griots serving politics

A thousand-year-old tradition revived.

According to oral sources, the griot tradition dates back to the tenth century AD. Originating in the kingdom of Ghana (now Mauritania and Mali), it then spread throughout northern West Africa thanks to the musicians of the West African kingdoms that succeeded it, particularly during the expansion of the kingdom of Mali.

Because of the griots’ role as praise singers, the situation is particularly interesting in post-independence West Africa. This tradition then became a means of reconnecting with the past, and the first presidents of Mali and Guinea, in particular, presented themselves as capable of strengthening this link: Modibo Keïta came from the family of Sunjata Keïta, the most eminent Mansa in the kingdom of Mali. For griots, this provided an ideal starting point for celebrating the first president of the independent Republic of Mali, as he could be praised in song as a descendant of the Mansa of the medieval kingdom of Mali.

Sékou Touré also had historical and genealogical legitimacy: he was said to be a descendant of Samory Touré, a 19th-century ruler who had fought the French colonial army for years, blocking its advance; moreover, he envisaged the rebirth of a Mande kingdom.

Bembeya Jazz National and Salif Keïta : praise in music.

The famous album “Regard sur le Passé” by the Guinean group Bembeya Jazz National, which paid tribute to Samory Touré, was therefore at the same time a tribute to Sékou Touré. The track “Mandjou” by Malian artist Salif Keïta is in the same vein: evoking the age-old history of the Tourés as Muslim scholars, it pays tribute to Sékou Touré, in the manner of the griots, presenting him as a worthy descendant of great ancestors.

On the one hand, this praise of the era of independence is clearly part of the griot tradition. On the other hand, however, the music that accompanies it does not strictly correspond to the court griot music of yesteryear, nor are all the successful musicians of the independence era griots.

Anatomy of a song of praise: ‘Mandjou’.

“Mandjou” is a song performed by Salif Keïta in tribute to Sékou Touré, in the tradition of the Jeli songs of praise from the Manding empire. The song draws on the classic categories of griot praise song: genealogy, popular imagery. Genealogy is explicitly invoked: “ Andrée Touré kè” , “Na Aminata Fadiga den” , “ Alimamy mamareni” , “Ramata kôrôkè, Cha ka kôrôkè, Noucoumba (kôrôkè” , “Mahamdou fa” , “Minata n’tchini fa” , “ Alpha Touré la den” …Andrée Touré’s husband” , “his mother Aminata Fadiga’s son” , “ Almamy (Samory Touré)’s grandson” , “Ramata’s older brother” , “Chaka’s” , “Noucoumba’s” , “Mahamadou’s father” , “little Minata’s father” , “ Alpha Touré’s son” .

Salif Keïta also points outthat Sékou Touré comes from the lineage of the “Mande mori” (Mande marabouts), just like the Kouma, Diané, and Cissé families. The praise then draws on popular imagery: Salif Keïta sings that Sékou Touré was blessed by God, who granted him blessings so that he would have no reason to envy anyone: “He who has a father boasts of it / God has granted you that” “He who has children boasts of them / God has granted you that” “He who holds the truth boasts of it / God has granted you that” Oh Mandjou, don’t cry, this is no time to cry There’s this phrase: “Mandjou djo, sanou djo” , which I would translate as: “Mandjou is right, and it’s worth its weight in gold” . But there are other interpretations, such as “May God cover you in gold, Mandjou” . Salif Keïta also claims that “power goes well with Mandjou” (mansaya, which means power but also royalty). He describes him as “a fetish that treats friends and enemies alike” (“nama” = fetish, but can also mean hyena in certain contexts), “a great elephant” or “an old elephant” (“sama” = elephant). In Mali, the names Touré, Samassékou and Sogoba are said to refer to the elephant). According to him, Mandjou is a man of his word, a man of truth, a man of spirit (who thinks), an admirable lover and a loving husband. A great leader on whom everyone is pinning their hopes. Mandjou is “our hope, as a husband can be for his wife… as a tree branch can be for a bird, …as the bush/savannah can be for the wild animal, as a river can be for the fish, as God can be for the world. ” “Musso djigi y’a fouroukè bèrè di / An djigi ye Mandjou ye ” Kônô djigi ye yiribolo di, Allah / An djigi ye Mandjou ye ” Sogo djigi ye wulaba kolo di, papa / An djigi ye Mandjou ye ” Jègè djigi ye bafa dji di, Allah / An djigi ye Mandjou ye ” ” Dunuya djigi ye Dalimansa di, Allah / An djigi ye Mandjou ye “) ” An djigi ye Mandjou ye ” = ” Mandjou is our hope ” / ” Our hope lies in Mandjou “ .

The nation on stage and musical internationalism

Congolese rumba, pan-African music par excellence.

East Africa offers a very good example of the extent to which Congolese rumba can be considered the pan-African music par excellence. Congolese musicians have successfully toured East Africa, and East Africans have formed bands that cover Congolese music. In addition, transoceanic exchanges had an impact on the evolution of the local popular music scene in East Africa. Arab and Indian styles – from oud tunes to Bollywood film soundtracks – have been seamlessly and successfully integrated into local styles, particularly on the Swahili coast. The Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, for example, has had a profound and lasting influence on female taarab singers (Ntarangwi 2003; Askew 2002). Popular local musical styles abound in East Africa, including taarab, ngoma or bongo flava, the latter currently being the most popular style.

Using Tanzania as an example, Kelly Askew convincingly demonstrated how music has been integrated into the nation-building process. By focusing on music and performance, she was able to take a critical look at dominant approaches to nation and nationalism, which she describes as not impartial enough. She emphasises the performative and dialogic aspects at work in the emergence of nation and nationalism. Despite all the nationalisation, Western – and Eastern – influences on Tanzanian music continued to be just as important as elsewhere in Africa and, indeed, all over the world. Like many others, Nyerere was a mistaken believer in the essentialist idea that human beings had music, dance or rhythm in their blood. Like all forms of cultural expression, these can be learned – and, particularly in the field of music, there is a strong desire for new, hitherto unknown forms of expression that transcend borders. In this context, theories on the dialectic of the global and the local have shown how global forms can nevertheless be used for local modes of expression.

The next generations: pan-Africanism and cultural resistance.

African-American music was “fashionable” among Bamako’s youth in the 1970s, as they saw it as an expression of pan-African sentiment and saw listening to it as an act of resistance in the face of enduring French cultural domination. A similar function – the expression of one’s own style in opposition to the West – was attributed to reggae a decade later, as Malian reggae musician Oumar Koita pointed out in an interview (Dorsch 1994). To understand how Latin American music – and Congolese rumba in particular – became an expression of the independence era, these transatlantic exchanges must be taken into account. There is, however, a certain irony in the fact that, both in Sékou Touré’s Guinea and in Congo and Zaire under Mobutu, Latin American-inspired music became the soundtrack to the African “authenticity” decreed by the respective governments, while Nyerere’s attempts to “reafricanise” Tanzanian music were not particularly successful.

The era of independence: an ongoing process

The Portuguese colonies: late independence.

A look at southern Africa in particular shows that the era of independence is of course not limited to the 1960s. Neo-colonial dependencies and other phenomena should remind us that independence can be seen more as an ongoing process than as a bygone era, especially as many countries only achieved independence in the decades that followed. This applies first and foremost to the Portuguese colonies, whose path to independence was a bloody one. Portugal’s refusal to accept the end of the colonial era triggered wars of liberation that turned into equally cruel civil wars immediately after independence in 1975. This involved the two large countries of Angola and Mozambique, as well as the small country of Guinea-Bissau, which gained independence not only for itself, but also for the Cape Verde islands. In the Portuguese-speaking countries, the victorious liberation movements turned to the socialist camp – in particular the Soviet Union and Cuba – for support. The importance of music in nation-building took a rather unusual turn in Angola and Mozambique because of relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Thousands of Angolan and Mozambican students attended secondary school and university in these two socialist countries. In Cuba, schools were built especially for foreign students. These schools were built in isolated areas in the countryside, each intended for students of a particular nationality. As well as the usual subjects, students were taught about the cuisine, musical styles and dances of their home country. By learning the dances and musical styles of the many different regions of Mozambique, they gained a sense of belonging to the nation as a whole. They were encouraged to speak Portuguese rather than their ethnic languages, and so came to identify themselves as Mozambicans rather than as Shangaan or Makonde, Muslim or Christian. This sense of belonging to a community persists to this day.

Bonga and Cesaria Evora: two artists’ destinies.

Angolan singer Bonga Kuenda has enjoyed great success on both the international and national scenes. After a career as an athlete, he became a musician in the 1970s, during the dictatorships of Salazar and Caetano in Portugal and before Angola’s independence in 1975. Because of his revolutionary lyrics, his first album, “ Angola ’72” , was released in the Netherlands – it was banned in Angola and Portugal. Bonga has lived in exile in France, Germany and the Netherlands. Interestingly, the euphoria we associate with the independence era is by no means always reflected in the biographies of musicians from that era. The Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora, who was already nationally renowned in the 1970s, went through a creative crisis in the years immediately following independence and withdrew from the scene. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that she launched her international career from Paris.

Zimbabwe: the chimurenga and the resistance.

In reference to a 19th-century movement, the Zimbabwean anti-colonial struggle was christened “chimurenga” , a name later taken up by a pop music genre mainly influenced by musician Thomas Mapfumo and his band Blacks Unlimited. Mapfumo transposed the music of the mbira – a variant of which is known in the West as the kalimba or “thumb piano” – into a pop context and performed well-known mbira themes on guitar. For a long time, his lyrics – sung in the Shona language – were ignored by the white population, even though they openly called for resistance against the white regime. It was not until 1979 that the government became aware of the true nature of his lyrics, after which he was imprisoned and his music banned. The latter measure was not very effective, however, as the “Voice of Mozambique” radio station broadcast Mapfumo’s music from the neighbouring country. When the black majority of the population came to power, Mapfumo was released from prison and played his music at Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations, where Bob Marley had also performed.

South Africa: music and the fight against apartheid

Of course, the era of independence did not go unnoticed in South Africa, and resistance against the apartheid regime became more radical in the 1960s. The regime took brutal action against its critics, as witnessed by the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 and the shooting of schoolchildren in Soweto in 1976. Many politically committed musicians fled or were forced into exile. Among them, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela are probably the most famous. When Makeba married Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael, she realised that critical voices were not always welcome in the West either. His concerts were cancelled, and the couple eventually decided to go into exile in Guinea, where Makeba not only received the support of Sékou Touré, but was also offered a house and a diplomatic passport. This enabled her to criticise the South African apartheid regime before the UN, as Guinea’s representative. By the way, she learned the art of griot praise singing in Guinea and immediately put it into practice in honour of Sékou Touré (Makeba 1987). In South Africa itself, the regime sought to create a musical landscape divided into distinct spheres, in accordance with the “racial” categories defined by apartheid ideologues. However, these boundaries were repeatedly ignored, not only by members of the Cape Town jazz scene, but also by individual musicians such as Johnny Clegg, the internationally renowned ‘White Zulu’ . A dance called toyi toyi became an expression of the struggle against apartheid, led mainly by the ANC.

the questions of what has been achieved, what dreams have been dashed and what chances have been missed seem to find expression in a new retrospective perspective. Cameroonian rap group Ak Sans Grave, for example, resolutely and critically addresses the dashed hopes of the independence era in their version of “Indépendance ChaCha” .

At first glance, it may seem surprising that it is precisely Cuban music that continues to embody the spirit of the independence era. However, we must bear in mind that Latin American music is itself deeply rooted in African rhythms.

This fact was of course well known to African musicians and their audiences. Latin American music could therefore be considered a modern form of African music. In addition, there is no doubt that the idea of a common identity as inhabitants of the South was also important. This self-image enabled people to distance themselves both from the North and from the image of African backwardness conveyed by the colonisers.

Bibliographic references

• Askew, K. (2002). Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Charry, E. (2000). Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Dorsch, H. (2000). Griots, Electro-Mbalax und die Black Atlantic-Sphäre. Bayreuth: Bayreuth African Studies.
• Dorsch, H. (2006). Indépendance Cha Cha: Griot Music and the Independence Era in West Africa. Bayreuth: Pia.
• Dorsch, H. (2010). « Independence Chacha : la musique pop africaine depuis l’ ère de l’indépendance. » African Spectrum, vol. 3, p. 131-146.
• Gilroy, P . (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso.
• Hale, T. (1998). Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Makeba, M. (1987). Makeba: My Story. New York: New American Library.
• Ntarangwi, M. (2003). Gender, Identity, and Performance: Understanding Swahili Cultural Realities through Song. Trenton: Africa World Press.
• Person, Y . (1968). Samori : une révolution dyula. Dakar: IFAN.