I'm sure someone has a good knowledge of what exactly it is (Rene?), although I suspect that a lot of it is too "loose" with too much variation to nail it down completely - more of a feel thing, like swung timings.
Oh dear I was hoping avoid this thread. ☹
I have written quite a lot of Southern African styled music in the past for Jazzart Dance theatre. I often felt uncomfortable with these works because I didn't fully understand what I was doing.
Here's my WIKI for what it's worth (Warning do not mistake the following opinions as fact!).
Like all indigenous (folk) music, African music originated from a pentatonic scales. The African pentatonic sounds a lot different from western major pentatonic because the temperament (tuning) of the notes are different, so a major 3rd interval can often sound a bit like a minor 3rd and so forth.
The most common harmonies are 3rd and 5th. Unlike western vocals, African vocal scoop (bend) down to the note ie the note is sung too high and brought down a pitch to harmonize.
The different regions, North, South, East, and West Africa have distinctly different styles of music. Rural African music is different to "Township" music. African music is, like all music, continuously evolving over time. Example West African drum and flute music was exported to America through the Slave Trade and was imported back into Southern African music through Jazz and became Township Jive (and that obscene noise called hip-hop became Quaito)
And now for the part that I've been trying to avoid, rhythms. In Southern African music there are 2 major rhythms I am familiar with (no Quaito doesn't count). Quella - we all know it, "The Click Song" or "The Lion Sleeps Tonight",and M'Pansua or Township Jive, "Manenberg" by Abdulla Ibrahim springs to mind. The differences between Quelle and M'Pansula is best illustrated through some sound bytes which I would need to prepaid if anyone is interested? (Damn I knew I would get in over my head ???)
