Ilanga Festival from South Africa (Hamburg, Germany)

Ilanga Festival

Here is another fact about Hamburg: the city has lots of parks spread out in different quarters! I attended Ilanga Festival at ‘Planten un Blomen’ Park!

The weather wasn’t great on that day, so the turn out wasn’t as good as it should have been. Yet, it was a truly enjoyable event! Enjoy these few pictures and videos!

If you want to know more about the ‘Dube‘ band, please check their website here: www.dube-music.com

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Hugh Masekela Afro-Jazz Live Concert in Dublin, Ireland (2014)

Hugh Masekela

A few weeks ago, I attended the Hugh Masekela concert in National Concert Hall organised by the Waltons World Masters.

Hugh Masekela

I saw few papers around from this music organisation before that day. The papers detailed the artist biography with an offer to sign up for their newsletter. I subscribed and became the lucky winner of two tickets to watch this jazz concert!

Originally, I didn’t know much about Hugh Masekela and his South African band even though they are a well-known in the jazz world. Consequently, I had no particular expectations from them. However, I must say now: it was one the best concerts I have been attended!

Hugh Masekela, although already 75 years of age at that time, displayed incredible energy and musical talent throughout the whole show. He was a very witty, bright and young at heart artist.

His band and himself continued playing about 3-4 extra songs after the due ending time of the concert.

I also discovered the ‘Tig Linn’ support band, an afrobeat and afro-jazz Irish-Nigerian band from Dublin. Worth watching, too! They play a fusion of Nigerian and traditional Irish music.

Tig Linn is still going strong. They are still regularly playing live. To keep up-to-date of their next concert, follow them on Facebook. If you would like to book them for a concert, get in touch with them on their website.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY AND SUPPORT BAND INFORMATION

Click on the pictures to read more easily the brochures’ information:

Hugh Masekela

LIVE CONCERT RECORDING

This video is from the repeat songs at the end:

Keep in mind that you will no longer be able to go to his concerts. Indeed, Hugh Masekela died on 23rd January 2018 at the age of 78. Repose in peace.

If you enjoy his music, you may want to buy it on Amazon.

Kwaito (South African House): its music evolution, exportation and the dance

For those of you who never heard of Kwaito music, I let you catch up on this by reading my previous article at the following link:

http://wp.me/pXgap-fR

To understand the origin of Kwaito, please check this article out:

http://africanmusicdance.wikia.com/wiki/Kwaito

Today, I will introduce you to the Kwaito music industry through a very good documentary filmed by Eric Sell a.k.a EES (also: eesy-ees/EeS/EeS, “Easy Eric Sell”) a Namibian German Kwaito artist and rapper. He travels between South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Germany to demonstrate the music evolution and its exportation. Any of his German explanations will be subtitled in English, but most part of this reportage is in English. Now, enough talking from me, check out the youtube film below:

Since you know now more about what Kwaito music is, you may want to see how the Kwaito dance looks like and try out few basic steps. The two first video below will showcase a TV dance show and a dance performance and the last one is a dance tutorial from EES (Eric Sell). What are your thoughts in this music and dance style? Do you think it has potential to become a worldwide phenomenon?

To listen to and watch Kwaito music mix and dance, check out this link full of videos:

http://www.mashpedia.com/Kwaito

South Africa – Hip Hop artists

Ever wondered how South African Hip Hop music could sound like? If you have never been to South Africa, this will give a delightful musical trip!

I have discovered some really cool hip hop artists true to their origins, who have mixed the hip hop music with the fascinating local sounds like Kwaito ( a variant of house music featuring the use of African sounds and samples. Typically at a slower tempo range than other styles of house music, Kwaito often contains catchy melodic and percussive loop samples, deep bass lines, and vocals) or Zulu (guitar picking folklore music style influenced by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century).

For more information on Kwaito, check out this article:

http://thisisafrica.me/lifestyle/real-roots-kwaito-south-african-house-music/

I hope you will enjoy as much I did to listen to Terror MC, Pro Kid, Mzekezeke and Zulu boy.

If you want to know a bit more about these artists, check out their biographies here and find few videos below these links:

http://www.myspace.com/theterrormc

https://www.last.fm/music/PROKID

http://kwaitomusic.co.za/artists/mzekezeke/

http://www.djsproduction.co.za/zulu-boy/

If you know any other original South African Hip Hop artists, share their tracks with us in the comment box below!

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