Arts + Culture
Francis Bebey: the Cameroonian musician, writer and thinker who played the world’s instruments
Francis Bebey was a Cameroonian guitarist, composer, novelist and musicologist. He wrote the prize-winning novel Agatha Moudio's Son,…
guitar
Music
Maskandi: the Zulu guitar music born on the road between village and mine
Maskandi is a Zulu guitar music that grew among migrant workers travelling between rural KwaZulu-Natal and the mines…
Music
Sungura: the guitar music of Zimbabwe’s buses, beer halls and Alick Macheso
Sungura, Zimbabwe's most popular dance music, is built on fast interlocking guitars and a busy bass. Stars such…
Music
S.E. Rogie: the Sierra Leone tailor whose palm wine guitar reached the world
S.E. Rogie, born in 1926 in Sierra Leone, was a self-taught guitarist who ran a tailor's shop before…
Arts + Culture
Benga: the Kenyan guitar sound built on the Luo nyatiti, and its champion D.O. Misiani
Benga, Kenya's best-known popular music, grew from Luo musicians adapting the rhythms of the nyatiti lyre to electric…
Music
Loliwe and a guitar: remembering Zahara, 1987 to 2023
Zahara, born Bulelwa Mkutukana in 1987, was a South African singer, songwriter and guitarist whose debut album Loliwe…
Music
A guitar tuned like an n’goni: Habib Koité and Bamada
Habib Koité, from a lineage of Khassonké griots, developed a guitar style that tunes the instrument to a…
Arts + Culture
He took his stage name from a board game he rarely lost: Oliver De Coque, the king of Igbo highlife
Oliver De Coque, born Oliver Sunday Akanite in Ezinifite, Anambra State, in 1947, became one of the most…