Unit 6 Culture Project

By: Marie Wilson and Sheenkhalay

African Hiphop

 Hip hop music has been popular in Africa since the 1980’s due to a widespread. The success of African hip hop is owed to the accessible nature of the genre. Whereas many other music styles – the most obvious of them being jazz and classical – require extensive training and expensive equipment, all that hip hop asks for is a voice and a creative mind.

Hip-hop has quickly taken root in the Kenyan popular music scene, with local artists building on the genre’s American roots, translating it to the local language and using it to transform the lifestyles of young people in urban centers.A young rapping group was the beginning of a movement in Kenya and East Africa. They laid the foundation for lots confidence in teenagers and young adults, literary participation, political awareness and social activism.

Afrocubism

 AfroCubism is an award-winning, Grammy-nominated album featuring musical collaborations between musicians from Mali and Cuba. It was created in 1997.  An idea in a 1997 effort to bring electric guitarist Djelimady Tounkara and Ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate from Mali to record in Cuba produced instead the quickly improvised, massively successful artistic and commercial wonder the world embraced as the Buena Vista Social Club.

 Now the collaboration has taken place, at last, with Djelimady and Bassekou joined by other more newly celebrated Malians, including kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté and singer Kassé Mady Diabaté working alongside the Cuban Buena Vista star Eliades Ochoa and his band. They have recorded an elegant, gently exquisite album, and it's a reminder that while Malians are at ease playing Cuban songs

Kente Cloth

Kente is a brightly colored, material and is the most widely known cloth produced in Africa. Although kente cloth is now identified with the Akan people in West Africa, and particularly the Asante Kingdom, the term originates from the neighboring Fante. Kente cloth is closely related to Adinkra cloth, which has symbols stenciled into cloth.

Kente cloth is made from thin strips about four centimeter thick woven together on narrow looms - typically by men. The strips are interlaced to form a fabric which is usually worn wrapped around the shoulders and waist like a toga - the garment is also known as kente. Women wear two shorter lengths to form a skirt and bodice. Originally made from white cotton with some indigo patterning, kente cloth evolved when silk arrived with Portuguese traders in the seventeenth century.