Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop Quiz

Answer: Miriam Makeba

Miriam is considered South Africa's greatest music ambassador. Blessed with a richly textured voice she started her career singing in church choirs. Influenced by the likes of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald she joined the Manhattan Brothers before venturing out on her own.

In 1959 she journeyed to London and began recording alongside Harry Belafonte. When she endeavoured to return to South Africa she found that her passport had been cancelled and she was left in exile from her homeland. This position remained until the fall of the apartheid regime.

Despite the exile she continued to record her music and speak out against apartheid. A Grammy Award winner, she was a major contributor to Paul Simon's 1986 album "Graceland". Sadly she suffered a heart attack in 2008 after performing her signature song "Pata Pata" in concert and passed away.

Answer: Sello "Chicco" Twala

Born in Soweto in 1963, Chicco's initial plan was to become a policeman. He abandoned this idea to open a disco. He took up percussion, joined the soul band Umoja and, in the process, became one of the architects of South Africa's disco boom. In 1987 he released the song "We Miss You Manelo", which could not be seen as anything more than a protest song at the continued incarceration of Nelson Mandela. One of his best known numbers is "Papa Stop the War" which was a collaboration with Mzwakke Mbul, one of Africa's most noted social poets.

Answer: True

Zulu pop has developed from a number of traditional sources. One of these is maskanda (Zulu folk music), which puts forth two styles of guitar playing - ukuvamba, which is type of percussive strumming and ukupika. In ukupika the lower string are called men and are played with the thumb while the upper strings, the women, are played using the other fingers. Ukupika requires a great deal more skill from the artist and, accordingly, is seen to be more representative of the Zulu way.

The typical maskanda song set up was pioneered by John Bhengu during the 1950s and it features sections of choral singing at the start and the finish of the song.

The gap between these two segments is called ukubonga which is a rapid style of guitar accompanied by rapping that generally delivers praise to the family of the clan.

Answer: Mozambique

With a little bit of Latin add a little bit of rock, then throw in a huge rhythm section and some African style rumba (soukous) sounds and you get the deep rich pot pouri that is Marabenta Star. In their early days they enjoyed getting up the nose of the Portuguese authorities, who ruled them at the time, by singing in their African language, songs about a normal, everyday life. Only their lead singer, Wazimbo, continued to record into the 21st century.

Answer: Uganda

Using his faultless tenor voice Samba has the power to deliver sounds that project ecstatic joy through to wailing sobs in Swahili and Lingala. In 1980 he joined forces with a number of Kenyan musicians, including the legendary guitarist Rissa-Rissa, to form Orchestra Virunga. They named themselves after the famous Zaire volcano as a method of defining their music and immediately released the single "Malako Disco", which would go on to become one of Kenya's biggest dance records. The band gained international fame with their 1991 hit "Feet on Fire".

Answer: Youssou N'Dour

Sometimes known as "Dakar's Little Prince", Rolling Stone magazine dubbed him "the most famous singer alive in Senegal and most of Africa" in 2004. His father was totally opposed to Youssou having a career in singing. That was until he saw an audience totally entranced by his golden voice.

He gave him his blessing and N'Dour has not looked back. N'Dour manages to combine a recipe of Latin dance grooves with rock, rhythm and blues. He also sings in five different languages. Many traditionalist are of the opinion that his music has far too much of a Western leaning but N'Dour's response to this criticism is that African music needs to move forward. "Seven Seconds" sold in excess of 1.5 million copies and, in 1994, won MTV Europe's Best Song award.

Answer: Angelique Kidjo

Often compared with the likes of Chaka Khan and Grace Jones, Kidjo is considered the queen of African crossover pop. Her home village of Ouidah is rich in African religion and remains a constant source of solace and inspiration for her. Kidjo calls herself a musical adventurist and derides her detractors who criticise her sound as being un-African, stating "I sing about problems that are not only in Benin or Africa. I write for everybody".

Answer: Morocco

Gnawa music has been built upon the religious songs of the Sufi people and, to a lesser extent, the Berbers of North and West Africa. Though its influences can be traced to a number of areas such as Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso and Mali, its strongest concentration and spiritual home lies in Morocco.

Their music is a sort of deep hypnotic trance which uses low but urgent sintir (a three stringed bass instrument) rhythms and melodies, lots of hand clapping laced with chanting and call and response singing. Young Gnawa musicians such as Hassan Hakmoun have succeeded in combining some of their traditional instruments, the stringed gimbri and the cymbals of the qaraqish, with keyboards and guitars to produce a fusion that reminds one of the psychedelic sounds of the American 1960's.

It has captured the imagination of artists such as Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and Tucker Martine who have all ventured to the area in search of inspiration.

Answer: Lucky Dube

Dube (pronounced doo-beh) caught the flame of reggae when he saw Jimmy Cliff on a tour through South Africa in the early 1980s. He formed the band Slave, released an album called "Rastas Never Die" (1984) and was soon placed in the same festival line-ups as the likes of Brenda Fassie and The Soul Brothers.

He became a "message" singer with his prime targets being racism and apartheid. Albums such as "Prisoner" (1989) and "Victims" (1993) soon gained him an international audience. In all he had released 22 albums sung in a combination of Zulu, Afrikaans and English in a career that spanned 25 years.

Answer: Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Ladysmith Black Mambazo performs in a style called isicathamiya, which is the traditional music of the Zulu people. Shabalala claimed that he formed the band in 1964 after being influenced by a series of dreams. Their name is comprised of three elements;
Ladysmith - the hometown of Shabalala's family in KwaZulu, Natal.
Black - representing the ox, which is the mightiest of the farm animals.
Mambazo - means axe in Zulu. This is a reference to their constant success in singing competitions (they cut the opposition down) that they were eventually banned.
Their first album "Amabutho" was released in 1973 and became the first record by black South Africans to attain gold record status. The group's popularity became such that the apartheid government relaxed their rules to allow some of the members to travel to Germany in 1981 to represent South Africa in a folk music festival. Their collaboration with Paul Simon in 1985 led to the recording of the single "Homeless" and international recognition.