Ihor Melnyk/Getty Images
New survey shows poor earnings from music streaming made worse by the digital divide and a lack of policy.
Asake live in Atlanta in the US in 2022.
Paras Griffin/Getty Images
The album Mr. Money With The Vibe, with its amapiano influences, is just 30 minutes long but it speaks volumes about Asake’s talents.
Amirr (centre) parades though his village ahead of the imbalu circumcision ritual. Imbalu begins with dance and music, as initiates visit relatives and friends to receive gifts.
Luke Drey/Getty Images
The ritual site becomes a communal classroom where songs and dances teach history, impart values and preserve cultural identity.
The 2022 event was cancelled but then given permission to go ahead.
Badru Katumba/AFP/Getty Images
The non-stop four-day dance party is always controversial – this year because of threats of terrorist attacks.
Nigerian musician Fela Kuti and his band in Harlem, New York, 1989.
Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images
Nigerian popular music - Afrobeats - is storming the world’s stages. But it’s just the latest stage in a vibrant century of recorded music in the country.
Nduduzo Makhathini’s new offering is called In the Spirit of Ntu.
Photo by Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images
The jazz star says he wants his piano to speak in his isiZulu language, and that his music is born from spiritual concerns.
Orlando Julius Live in Concert in 2015.
Photo by Kmeron/Flickr
The Afrobeat star used music to promote and preserve his Yoruba culture - while entertaining diverse global influences.
World Circuit Records
Gomis was the last surviving founder of Orchestra Baobab, Senegal’s most famous band.
Musician Orlando Julius with his wife, dancer Latoya Aduke Ekemode.
Photo by Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images
He played every venue that mattered, a global face of Afrobeat. Orlando Julius embodied the groove.
South African producer and DJ Black Coffee plays in New York in 2018.
Photo by Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images
Despite controversy at home and a decade late, the Grammy win proves how much the world loves South Africa’s biggest house music star.
Photo courtesy Simphiwe Dana
Moya is a show that seeks a spiritual awakening, especially after the trauma and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo by Visual Narphilia courtesy Synik
Synik’s new album continues to shape identity and consciousness in a country with limited freedom of speech.
Dolly Rathebe (centre) in detail of the album cover for Dolly Rathebe & Elite Swingsters.
Gallo Music Publishing
Her celebration of black life, black beauty and black humanity through her films and music was subversive.
The two violins constructed by the researchers.
Courtesy Martina Meincken
African wood species are clearly suitable to make violins. They produce an instrument with a beautiful, though slightly different sound.
A masked herdsman in Lesotho.
Edwin Remsberg/The Image Bank via Getty Images
Lesotho’s famo music is known for the use of accordions - and gang violence. In Wayfarers’ Hymns, Zakes Mda explores this tradition.
Clay figurines of musicians, by Samuele Makoanyane.
Kirby Collection, University of Cape Town
Clay figurines of musicians, made in the 1930s, are being exhibited along with a new film of actual musicians playing the traditional instruments.
Tsepo Tshola during the memorial service of Hugh Masekela in 2018.
Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images
Schooled in music through church, he was driven by a fierce sense of belonging to Lesotho where he was born, and neighbouring South Africa.
Tsepo Tshola performs at A Night With Legends Live in Johannesburg in 2020.
Screengrab/Slice Events
For over 50 years Tshola was loved by audiences around the world for his rich baritone voice, which he used to inspire and to speak political truths.
Professor James Steven Mzilikazi Khumalo (1932-2021).
Courtesy Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro)
South Africa’s greatest composer was uniquely shaped by his early years of singing at traditional Zulu weddings and working in jazz bands and church choirs.
The late Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo helped create the new South African National Anthem, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.
Bongiwe Mchunu/ANA
Mzilikazi Khumalo was a brilliant linguist with a stellar career in music. These achievements are extraordinary considering the obstacles he faced throughout his career.