Africans accuse African Americans of "appropriating" their culture (legitimate criticism?)

[Lost1]

There are wind instruments in West Africa but they aren't arranged (or used like) Horn sections in the jazz or Funk sense

I didn't say they were used exactly like in funk or jazz at all though

I posted a video by dele ojo which didn't even use horns and Poitier responded by bringing up what African music sounded like before recorded music maybe because he thought I believed all of it sounded like some of it does today or something like that

but even then his question was irrelevant because highlife and guitar based music that is played with native lutes like seprewas (in Ghana for example) or with European style guitars brought by Kru sailors was already being played in Africa before any African music was recorded so his "ceremonial/religious/traditional" statement was irrelevant

He later claimed west africans didn't use wind instruments which is ridiculous

then he said they never used horn sections in traditional music and he focused on a particular country at first

so I posted a book about the use of horns in that country which was literally about nothing else but the use of horns in one area of that country and how they used horns in their traditional music in particular types of ensembles for royal performances

if you check the book you'll see they were using them since at least the 16th century and you'll see that they used them with groups of hornplayers to accompany other musical instruments in ceremonies. . .I don't know what your definition of horn sections is but even European classical music has horn sections so we don't have to talk about jazz or funk necessarily just because we're talking about horn sections. If you think a group of hornplayers together with other musicians playing other instruments isn't having a horn section for a musical performance then I guess you all are using some unique or special sense of that term

but anyway whether you guys all accept what i'm saying about horns isn't even important because the debate is just so ridiculous

the idea that the use of horns in solo or group performances or as an ensemble working with other musicians playing non horn instruments in west african music is due to western influence (whether european or African American) and was not used in traditional music is nonsense

but i'm sure next i'll read in some article that southwestern asians blessed the egyptians with horns and the egypians marched into Africa distributing horns to the hopelessly unmusical blacks of sub saharan Africa or some crazy shyt like that

 

[Lost1]

From what I understand palmwine is from Kru people and the Ghanaians take on it is known as Highlife




Jazz is a big part of the high life sound




There is upbeat Blues (blues has many forms) too

I don't see why in this you say that its just their "take on it" when you don't use that language to discuss afrobeat and its obvious inspiration from and connection to jazz and funk

it's not merely that "palmwine is from Kru people"

highlife is from the Kru - without them it wouldn't even exist

Ghanaians got big records out first and also heavily popularized it but its origin is Kru

lets not waste time arguing over semantics


the main element in highlife music is the guitar. . later jazz additions to that are sometimes great when not overdone but its not somehow required for the music. . .jazz is not by any means a necessary component of highlife. People just started jazzing it up later after Western aerophone instruments became popular among musicians in Africa. . .



and most blues music is not really positive or upbeat lets not kid ourselves

the point is highlife is not from the blues

i mean this is a bizarre argument to even have

the fact that the two styles of music have almost exactly the opposite general themes - one is mostly joyous festive and celebratory and the other mostly depressive and sad is just another aspect of how they're different

ultimately thats not even my major objection

it just doesn't sound like the blues and not because of a language difference or anything

and there's simply no support for the idea that highlife is derived from blues. . .literally none

just a little reading on it would've made people in this thread know this already though

its like you guys believe that the minute any black person anywhere in the world picks up a guitar and starts playing something they're "influenced by American blues or R&B" even in a case where the music has a different sound and even when the actual origins of the music are already known to people that have studied it and these origins don't include American blues or R&B

that's why i'd like you guys to explain the supposed derivations of African songs from styles in detail not just saying a song is from this or that style repeatedly

 

[Poitier]

Still no sources with dates, eh?

Still no videos of traditional west african non-sahelian music with the guitars and wind instruments, eh?

Posting videos of Africans in 1950 does nothing. Neither does an African playing a single sharp note on a flute equal a horn section.

 

[Lost1]

That song just sounds like a sparse chant type song. Some parts of the vocals reminds me of blues-work song chants. 3rd song is loaded with Jazz influences and the 4th song has R&B'ish/Funk stylings.

What is a "chant type song"

is that a musical phrase with a specific meaning?

Africans can't do "chant singing" (whatever exactly that is) without it being said to be derived from "blues work-chants"?

I don't get this kind of claim so explain that

the third and fourth songs are there because they are not R&B and pop (which was the original reason they were posted) not because they're supposed to be examples of music without funk or jazz influence. . .I never thought of jazz or funk as pop but maybe you do so there might be some miscommunication on this point that's making us not understand each other

those four songs are just representative of the (different) kind of stuff older Africans (not really many younger Africans today admittedly) were heavily listening to in the southern part of one country in west africa (people from northern nigeria had their own music and it definitely wasn't the stuff on that compilation)

 

[Poitier]

Highlife is a music genre that originated in Ghana at the turn of the 20th century and incorporated the traditional harmonic 9th, as well as melodic and the main rhythmic structures in traditional Akan music, and married them with Western instruments and ideas. Highlife was associated with the local African aristocracy during the colonial period. Highlife spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia and Nigeria via Ghanaian workers, among other West African countries, by the 1930s. It is very popular in Liberia and all of English-speaking West Africa, although little has been produced in other countries due to economic challenges brought on by war and instability.

Highlife is characterised by jazzy horns and multiple guitars which lead the band. Recently it has acquired an uptempo, synth-driven sound (see Daddy Lumba). Igbo highlife and Joromi are subgenres.[1][2][3]

This arpeggiated highlife guitar part is modeled after an Afro-Cuban guajeo.[4] The pattern of attack-points is nearly identical to the 3-2 clave motif guajeo as shown below. The bell pattern known in Cuba as clave is indigenous to Ghana and Nigeria, and is used in highlife.[5]


The Wiki lying too

 

[Lost1]

Highlife is a music genre that originated in Ghana at the turn of the 20th century and incorporated the traditional harmonic 9th, as well as melodic and the main rhythmic structures in traditional Akan music, and married them with Western instruments and ideas. Highlife was associated with the local African aristocracy during the colonial period. Highlife spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia and Nigeria via Ghanaian workers, among other West African countries, by the 1930s. It is very popular in Liberia and all of English-speaking West Africa, although little has been produced in other countries due to economic challenges brought on by war and instability.

Highlife is characterised by jazzy horns and multiple guitars which lead the band. Recently it has acquired an uptempo, synth-driven sound (see Daddy Lumba). Igbo highlife and Joromi are subgenres.[1][2][3]

This arpeggiated highlife guitar part is modeled after an Afro-Cuban guajeo.[4] The pattern of attack-points is nearly identical to the 3-2 clave motif guajeo as shown below. The bell pattern known in Cuba as clave is indigenous to Ghana and Nigeria, and is used in highlife.[5]


The Wiki lying too

didn't I already say the "originated in ghana" thing is a misconception and myth (repeated by people with a really shallow knowledge of the genre)

if it can't get even the first sentence correct then yeah, it's not exactly trustworthy

 

[Premeditated]

This post and the one above together only answers my question about what you think African music sounded like without alleged American R&B influence for one region and for one other country outside of that region. While I did say you should choose I was hoping you would do so in a way that settles the issue of why you guys keep claiming everything I posted is American blues or R&B based.

The post is mostly just a listing of information and apart from the info on ethiopia this post states that only one region of Africa used banjo-like instruments then links that region's music to American blues music created by African Americans

now this tells us what the roots of AA blues music are likely to be but I still don't see how this answers the other question I asked about why the posters here seemed to think every song I posted is blues or R&B based

I don't doubt that American blues created by African Americans might really be closely tied to griot or sahelian music.though


Also wouldn't surprise me if that researcher quoted in your post suggesting the banjo is not indigenous to Africa is a european or a european descendant because some of them (though there are more objective ones) tend to go out of their way to promote the "negroes can't do anything on their own and borrow everything of even the slightest value that they have" narrative even though European and European based cultures are the biggest borrowers from cultures other than their own (when compared to everyone else on the planet) in all of human history in almost every field of human activity

Since the "drum dominated" stuff is mentioned I'll state for the record that lutes and guitar like instruments had a wide distribution throughout Africa.

Guitar like instruments and lutes were found being used in other parts of Africa outside of the sahelian area in the nineteenth and twentieth century ethnologists and colonists and were seen and heard by people who had visited Africa even before that, well before colonisation. . .this is probably part of why the Harvard Dictionary of Music states that native string instruments are evenly distributed across the African continent

You're relying on sources which basically claim guitar like instruments were not found outside of islamic or sahelian Arica and which claims those which were found in sahelian islamic Africa were fundamentally of southwestern Asian origin

since that article you're using says that southwest Asians gave Egyptians guitar type instruments, and egyptians then gave libyans and north african guitar like instruments and these libyans and north africans gave sudanic Africa guitar type instruments please let me know about these:and when and how something like these were borrowed from libyans:

Collections | National Museum of African Art

This mentions someone named Schweinfurth but there was another German named Wilhelm Junker in the late19th century who took photos of native Zande harps and also native Zande guitars

Am I supposed to believe native Zande guitars followed the Southwest Asia --> Egypt --> Sahara --> Libya --> black Africa model of dissemination claimed by the (probably European or European descended) author whose article you posted?

this is another video of Zande string music



we can argue that some parts of Africa relied more heavily on one kind of instrument than another based on speculation but the whole "forest people rarely used guitar like instruments" stuff is total nonsense

forest peoples in west africa in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana etc. had lutes.

also lutes were used not only in the forest areas of west africa but in central africa (Gabon, Congo, Angola, Cameroon, etc),

this is a drawing of a native guitar from Angola that was kept in the ethnographic museum in leiden in the netherlands

lutes were even played by central african pygmies!:




I can't even blame you guys for swallowing this kind of misinformation about only sahelian islamic west africans having guitar like instruments and lutes or whatever and also the further lie that the guitar like instruments of the sahelian area were borrowed from non-blacks because this is what happens when agenda driven europeans or non-black westerners alone tell a person's story and he fails to tell it himself. Since there is not a competing narrative whatever narrative gets the most press and support or gets put out first no matter how flimsy it is gets accepted. This is just another case of africans failing to tell their own story and being lied against as a result

wait....I haven't read the update in this thread but are these dudes seriously claiming that Sahelian music are AA influence?

Please don't tell me that.

fukk it. The Olmec were black and Mensa Musa's brother Abu was the first to discover America. I am now going to look for what ever article that fits these claims on google. The first one I find, whether it's peer review, authentic or not, I'm posting.

 

[Poitier]

didn't I already say the "originated in ghana" thing is a misconception and myth (repeated by people with a really shallow knowledge of the genre)

if it can't get even the first sentence correct then yeah, it's not exactly trustworthy

Or maybe you are clueless

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

So apparently on Twitter today, Africans are accusing African Americans of stealing their culture and they don't see the irony in it


A few tweets I pulled up:









Excuse me,

but isn't House music big in South Africa? Don't they have Nollywood films about Tupac? Isn't Afrobeats heavily influence by rap? Isn't there soul food restaurants in Kenya? Don't kids in Johanessburg and Cape Town dress like Black urban youth?

Is this a legitimate argument? Am I tripping?




This is why we need to reaffirm African American identity. They think they can leech off our culture then have their own culture as some exclusive culture that makes them "unique" @K.O.N.Y @KidStranglehold @IllmaticDelta @Ed MOTHEREFFING G @kayslay

This literally reaffirms my previous thread. They are so arrogant and dont get it...AT ALL

 

[Lost1]

Still no sources with dates, eh?

Still no videos of traditional west african non-sahelian music with the guitars and wind instruments, eh?

Posting videos of Africans in 1950 does nothing. Neither does an African playing a single sharp note on a flute equal a horn section.

what do you want sources with dates of?

that africans used horns?

alright i'll give you one. This one is on horns:

"As the procession moved towards our camp it was preceded by a band of musicians beating drums and blowing horns. The former were conical instruments of cotton wood with goatskin drum-heads, and the latter consisted of large elephant-tusks with holes bored close to the points. When blown singly they emitted a sound very much like that of a mail steamer's whistle, but when several were played together so as to produce chords the effect was somewhat like the sound of a coarse-tone organ."

The source is the book Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman and the author is Richard Austin Freeman. The date of the book is 1898 (he visited earlier than that though) and he is describing musicians from a part of Ghana

really this "west africans didn't used wind instruments" is just ridiculous

 

[Poitier]

"As the procession moved towards our camp it was preceded by a band of musicians beating drums and blowing horns.

Post some videos since 1890s is close to the film age.

 

[Lost1]

Or maybe you are clueless

you can think that if you want but i'm not even trying to make this personal or about you or me really

i'm not here to insult (at least not intentionally) and i'd prefer it if i got the same treatment so we can keep this more cordial

 

[Lost1]

Post some videos since 1890s is close to the film age.

I'm not sure that European musicologists or colonial anthropologists made videos showing traditional Ghanaian musicians in the early 1900s but I'll look around and see if i can find any

 

[Anti-Anime]

accuse people who could possibly be related to you of cultural appropriation brehs.

 

[Insensitive]

I don't see why in this you say that its just their "take on it" when you don't use that language to discuss afrobeat and its obvious inspiration from and connection to jazz and funk

it's not merely that "palmwine is from Kru people"

highlife is from the Kru - without them it wouldn't even exist

Ghanaians got big records out first and also heavily popularized it but its origin is Kru

lets not waste time arguing over semantics


the main element in highlife music is the guitar. . later jazz additions to that are sometimes great when not overdone but its not somehow required for the music. . .jazz is not by any means a necessary component of highlife. People just started jazzing it up later after Western aerophone instruments became popular among musicians in Africa. . .



and most blues music is not really positive or upbeat lets not kid ourselves

the point is highlife is not from the blues

i mean this is a bizarre argument to even have

the fact that the two styles of music have almost exactly the opposite general themes - one is mostly joyous festive and celebratory and the other mostly depressive and sad is just another aspect of how they're different

ultimately thats not even my major objection

it just doesn't sound like the blues and not because of a language difference or anything

and there's simply no support for the idea that highlife is derived from blues. . .literally none

just a little reading on it would've made people in this thread know this already though

its like you guys believe that the minute any black person anywhere in the world picks up a guitar and starts playing something they're "influenced by American blues or R&B" even in a case where the music has a different sound and even when the actual origins of the music are already known to people that have studied it and these origins don't include American blues or R&B

that's why i'd like you guys to explain the supposed derivations of African songs from styles in detail not just saying a song is from this or that style repeatedly

In this thread we do not realize that without the Blues there is no Jazz or Funk.

Posters tryna talk about the influence of Blues and African American music in general and
completely have no idea what they're talking about


Blues essentially split into R&B, Soul, Funk, Rock N'Roll, Jump Blues, Jazz etc.
it goes like this Blues ------> R&B/Rock N'Roll -----> Soul ----- > Funk ------> Hip Hop
or Blues ------> Jazz and from here Jazz can take on many forms
Blues + Jazz
Funk + Jazz
Hip Hop + Jazz
Soul + Jazz

This is a really simplified version but trust the Blues' influence cannot be overstated.
And as @Poitier stated it's clearly had a positive affect on African music helping to spawn Afrobeat and Highlife.