ROUTES & RHYTHM 

The influence of African music is widespread. It came over to America and Europe with the African enslaved people and combined with the folk music of European settlers to produce hybrid styles of music such as blues, gospel, rhythm & blues

(R & B) and jazz to name a few. These musical forms went on to form the basis of pop music today. It was the beats of African rhythms that was synthesised with other musical styles that has such an influence on modern music today. It is the beat of Africa that we hear in hip-hop music today and these workshops helped us to understand some of the living traditions and the passage of music.

The African-derived dance styles from South American and the Caribbean - the Rumba, Samba, Conga, Mambo and Merigue were being played by African dance orchestras, and absorbed into the local music, before the Second World War. The Samba, for instance, was introduced to Nigeria by the decedants of freed Brazilian enslaved people. Merigue became the national music of Sierra Leone (a country in West Africa).      In the 50's & 60's, Calypsos, Boleros, Cha Cha Chas, became the craze. We found out that most people knew that Jazz, Blues and Latin-American music partly came from Africa, but most do not realsise that these dance styles were not only taken back to Africa, where they became incorporated into the local music scenes there, but that these local fusions then crossed back over the Atlantic. There are many early examples of these cross-overs of modern African music and its musicians. "...for instance, the Gold Coast Police Band introduced live Highlife music ( a traditional style that influences rock & roll and funky music) to England in the late 30's, during the coronation of King George the Sixth".