On WORT 89.9 FM Panafrica: Music of Angola

On WORT 89.9 FM Panafrica show (http://www.wort-fm.org/listen.php) this Saturday, February 4th, 2-4 PM CST (3-5 ET), we head down south for a World is Africa tour of cultural and musical tour of Angola. Once part of the Congo Kingdoms, Angola suffered from a violent Portuguese slave trade that saw over 4 million of its people shipped to Brazil and the Caribbean. Post-Independence also saw the country torn into a civil war that pitted the MPLA Government backed by soviet union and Cuba against the rebels UNITA supported by US and its Allies.

Angolan traditional folk music is dominated by the Semba, an up-tempo dance music that is believed to be predecessor to Brazilian Samba, Kuduru, and Kizomba. Semba music conveys a story regarding life, social issues, and cautionary tales. Other style related to the Semba is Rebita as well as Kazukuta and Kabetula which are primarily Carnaval Music. There is also Merengue styles from Brazilian and Caribbean influences.

Music in Angola Angola's recording industry turned out singles during the 1960s and early 70s. During the early heyday of Congo music, Angola produced excellent electric guitar pop by groups like Os Kiezos, Oscar Neves, Os Bongos, and the great Jovens Do Prendo. The music owed something to the emerging rumba sound in neighboring Congo and the indigenous Angolan rhythms.The civil war that followed independence in 1975 proved especially brutal for the music scene, but even then, live bands continued to play in public halls. True survivors, Orquestra Os Jovens Do Prenda, started out as a rural marimba, percussion and vocal group in 1965. Other top names in Angolan music include Bonga, Eduardo Paim, The Kafala Brothers, Paulo Flores, Waldamar Bastos, and Ruka Vandunen.

Bonga is Angola's most visible pop artist, with a husky voice that is full of sweetness and vulnerability from years of civil strife and sadness from his country's long civil war. Bonga's music is full of soulful social consciousness, which he conveys in gruff, melancholy growl that gives people something beautiful and human with which to balance images of strife. Recent economic boom and peace has seen the rise of skyscrapers and multi-national corporations in Luanda, Angola; now the most expensive city in the world. Ringing the city are the museques, comparable to the favelas, or slums, in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.  The museques have spawned a music genre called kuduru, high energy dance music built around programmed beats. Kuduru dance inventions disseminate rapidly through the museques, with new ones appearing constantly

Join us for good music and progressive discussion. Listen to our archives for seven days at http://archive.wort-fm.org/

Panafrica Team

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Alhaji N'jai & Linda Vakunta (Dj Linda)
PanAfrica Show (Saturdays 2-4 pm CST)
WORT 89.9 FM Madison
Wisconsin, USA
Ph: (608)-256-2001
Email: panafrica.music@gmail.com

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