From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAfrobeat is a combination of Yoruba music, jazz, and funk rhythms, fused with African percussion and vocal styles, popularized in Africa in the mid to late 1960s.
Afrobeat's most famous artist was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who coined the term Afrobeat, constructed the musical structure and shaped the political context of the genre. He launched afrobeat in Lagos in 1968.
Afrobeat also has influences from high-life music, a style of African pop-jazz. Kuti had earlier played this type of music with the Koola Lobitos band.
Characteristics of Afrobeat are:-
Big bands: A large group of musicians playing various instruments (Fela Kuti's band in the 80s Egypt 80 featured 80 musicians);
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Energy: Energetic, exciting and with high tempo, polyrhythmic percussion;
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Repetition: The same musical movements are repeated many times;
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Improvisation: Performing without set music;
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Combination of genres: A mixture of various musical influences.
Afrobeat originated from the southern part of Nigeria in the 60s, influenced probably by the American free jazz movement. Fela Anikulapo Kuti went through experimenting different forms of music - first by highlife jazz, and then other forms of contemporary music of the time and local African harmonies and rhythms, taking different elements and combining, modernizing and improvizing those rythyms.
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