Music
Tshala Muana: the queen of mutuashi who carried Luba rhythms from Kasai to the world
Tshala Muana, born in Lubumbashi in 1958, became famous as the queen of mutuashi, a dance rhythm of…
AfroYard.net — African Music News, Releases & Artist Profiles
Latest Stories
Music
Ernesto Djédjé: the Ivorian creator of ziglibithy who died at the peak of his fame
Ernesto Djédjé fused the rhythms of the Bété people with funk and Congolese guitar to create ziglibithy, the…
Music
AfroFuture: the Accra December festival formerly known as Afrochella
Afrochella, launched in Accra in 2017, became one of the biggest events of Ghana's December season, drawing diaspora…
Arts + Culture
The djembe: how a Mande drum became one of the world’s most popular instruments
The djembe, a goblet-shaped drum from the Mande world of West Africa, is played with bare hands and…
Arts + Culture
The balafon: the West African xylophone and the legendary Sosso Bala
The balafon, a wooden xylophone with gourd resonators, is one of the oldest instruments of the Mande world.…
Arts + Culture
Lalibela: the rock-hewn churches carved downward into Ethiopian stone
The eleven rock-hewn churches of Lalibela in northern Ethiopia were carved out of solid volcanic rock, tradition says…
Arts + Culture
The Timbuktu manuscripts: how librarians smuggled a city’s books away from jihadists
Timbuktu holds hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, some centuries old, on subjects from law and astronomy to medicine.…
Arts + Culture
Great Zimbabwe: the stone city that gave a nation its name
Great Zimbabwe, a vast stone city near Masvingo built between roughly the 11th and 15th centuries, was the…
Arts + Culture
The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove: the forest shrine and sculptures of Susanne Wenger
The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, a forest on the banks of the Osun River in Osogbo, is dedicated to…
Music
Kollington Ayinla: the fuji star whose rivalry with Barrister defined a genre
General Kollington Ayinla, one of the pioneers of fuji music, became famous in the 1970s and 1980s for…