What is Black British culture?

[Indiglow Meta (R$G)]

Jamaicans had to have been in Britain pre 1900 right? Or were they part of a recent immigration phase? I could have swore there were populations of black people from places like Canada and Sierre Leone and other places (plus I think actual british slaves) that would be who were defined as “Black Brits”? I could be totally off.

The early core of black brits were....

Oh you don't want to know.
Long gone now.

 

[Anwulika]

Why is a twitter post from a bird got people so angry ?

And the ignorance (veiled as "fukkery or trolling") from both sides in this thread Jesus

It's getting pretty boring now, someone posts a few tweets from black people saying something demeaning about another group of black people and it just erupts into a full scale argument about different groups of black people. Black women vs black men, africans vs AA, black brits vs AA, caribbean people vs AA etc.

No group of black people is better than the other, let's just leave it at that.

 

[Anwulika]

Nah, you're just moving goal posts. The sound the instrument makes is still creative output by the person who invented it.

I thought that it was common knowledge that Jazz music has some European influences in it? This doesn't take anything away from AA culture, imo.

 

[Amor fati]

Yeah I’m from Brixton.

What’s Lancashire like?

It's all right depending on where you live within the county, in the county there is a lot of small main towns and villages near mountains or hills. Everything here moves at a very slow(LOL sometimes too slow) compared to London and everything here is pretty chilled. There's a ton of outdoor activities that people can take part in, there are museums and English heritage attractions. For shopping, nightlife or other activities Preston, Lancaster, and Blackpool are the best towns for them purposes. Overall the county is alright, my only issues is it's vital to have a vehicle here as public transport is not so great due to long waiting times, late on schedule or the buses don't go through a certain route and the job market is pretty bad.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

It's getting pretty boring now, someone posts a few tweets from black people saying something demeaning about another group of black people and it just erupts into a full scale argument about different groups of black people. Black women vs black men, africans vs AA, black brits vs AA, caribbean people vs AA etc.

No group of black people is better than the other, let's just leave it at that.

it would easier to ignore if it wasn't something that happened way too oftenaframs chilling and some group that we have almost no contact with or from some far off place posting dumb shyt

 

[Indiglow Meta (R$G)]

I thought that it was common knowledge that Jazz music has some European influences in it? This doesn't take anything away from AA culture, imo.

Reach.
Just let it go, y'all get cooked each time.

 

[iFuxWiddit]

We really live in their heads rent free

 

[MarrieGotBandzzz]

Yeah? Using chicago production, slang, and energy.
No guns, tho...just fingers and knives

Im Not talking about those stupid drill rappers











And just because we dont just randomply kill people in europe does not mean that nothing is happening out here

 

[Speaking Womanese]

Ima breakdown some of the history for you.

My family came here from Jamaica during windrush via boat.

It took a whole damn week to get here and by the time they came, there were signs up in certain establishments that said “no dogs, no blacks, no Irish.”

England was cold, poor, racist and boring as shyt and the English hated foreign food, foreign accents and anyone who showed any type of rebellion or individuality.

That includes other whites.

Jamaicans and Irish people like a drink or two, have similar fighting spirit and were equally discriminated against so formed little bonds with each other. I grew up with a few Irish families; in fact I was named after an Irish family friend. They were one of few groups of people back then who equally hated the English & wasn’t afraid to show them.

Other West Indians came around the same time, but back then (and even now sometimes) there were little island rivalries so no one really checked for other people’s “tribes” like that unless you were 100% sure they were cool. Jamaicans like calling other islanders “smallie” and it didn’t help our relationship with them.

Skinheads were the guard dogs of England and made a point of fukking with black people and in those days, Jamaicans were the main ones who verbally, physically & politically fought back.

My grand uncle is paralysed down one side of his face from being rushed by them for daring to hold eye contact and my grandma and her Irish friends found the men and pushed a brick through their mouth.

They never fukked with us again.

Jamaicans brought ska & blues music over to The UK with them & it’s only when cockney English heard the sound, they started to want in on whatever we were doing, but we didn’t fukk with them like that, so they had to call a truce between us and them.

By then we had built a rep over here for being “troublesome” and NO ONE liked us, but the cockney English men (mainly djs & promoters) who believed in the sound, brought it to mainstream radio and that’s one of the ways our music got pushed & b*stardised.

At the time, Aframs were fighting WS in the states and had The Black Panther movement so the black consciousness in The West was strong.

Black people were fighting the system.

Which brings me to why a lot of West Indians don’t like Africans.

Africans made a point of separating themselves back in the 60s from other black people out of superiority. Every other black group was perceived as a “lesser” to them and they had a tendency to shyt on black people in public in favour of whites.

African men still had the tribal scars on their face and were treated like shyt by whites because of it yet they would never retatliate when white people ridiculed them, so they made it harder for other Africans who were trying to make a life for themselves.

They didn’t build a reputation (as a collective) for being fighters so it was assumed they were food.

Ghanaians were ALWAYS preaching pan-Africanism (hence why most people like them now) & my family were cool with Nigerians. Naijas are one of the only groups of Africans I remember defending themselves. That, and they were quite attractive and dope dressers so other people liked them.

I’m speaking for the ones from Brixton.- can’t tell you about anyone else).

African elders didn’t fertilise the societal soil for their ilk, so the growing pains of trying to find their “spot” was left to the youngers coming up who naturally, held many, many slugs in the playground for being “different.”

They used to call us, “Jammo” & “slave baby” & we’d call them, “Bou bou” as in, bou bou clothing. We were terrible to each other smh.

There are Africans over here who believe we have “preferential treatment” here because we came first. Their elders never told them the truth because to do so, meant that they’d to tell them that those “dirty Jammos” were fighting racists whilst they were naming their kids Edward, Philip & Elizabeth.

As you can see, whether music or film, Nigerians & Ghanians are the only Africans making waves. In the West, black artists are either mimicking Afram or Jamaican music.

Why?

We’re the only two black groups that have consistently & generationally fought back against WS. There’s a ceiling for how many black tribes get through the door, and if you’re not from one of those, you’re probably gonna end up see-sawing between the ones who broke the door down.

 

[Indiglow Meta (R$G)]

Im Not talking about those stupid drill rappers











And just because we dont just randomply kill people in europe does not mean that nothing is happening out here

I OWN THE GUNS IN YOUR PROFILE PIC, YOU dikkEATER.
store bought, too.
Lived there DON'T CARE and that's not what we're talmbat (talking about, for you Euronikka Dutch Mulattos).
Nobody's getting killed for "no reason", you out here hyping "immigrant crime", you PUSS ass Boer speaking bytch.

Why they wearing snapbacks and leathers?
AVIREX JACKETS? I WORE THOSE IN 1998, MY BOY.
WHY THIS MAN NAME HUNCHO?
THAT'S US SLANG, bytch.

Why do you think I'm going to play that lame shyt?
bytch I'm part of the origination, keep that derivative copycat hoe shyt to yourself.
Wtf is wrong with you bums? Who are you?

 

[Indiglow Meta (R$G)]

Dutch bytches got whole rolling 60s and 8treys, please shut up DAUGHTER.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Im Not talking about those stupid drill rappers

this shyt is all based in southern hiphop sonics

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Don't forget South Africa was well developed earlier than most of the rest of us... that's why they could have people like Miriam Makeba doing duets with Harry Belafonte
Even when I was a kid... we used to look at country brehs like on some elitist shyt they were not with it. Forget buying records and a player... took folks a while to buy a radio. Without that you were only hearing music at events and most times it would be some local artists and every tribe had their star doing their tribal shyt speaking THEIR OWN language. People also sang a lot of traditional songs as opposed to listening to media

in south africa, even styles done in the native language/dialects that you think are traditionally african were/are afram influenced. As I told you before, Aframs were traveling in and around africa in the 1800's spreading their music around

1860s

In the mid-1800s, travelling minstrel shows began to visit South Africa. As far as can be ascertained, these minstrels were at first white performers in "black-face", but by the 1860s black American minstrel troupes had begun to tour the country. They sang spirituals of the American South, and influenced many South African groups to form themselves into similar choirs; soon regular meetings and competitions between such choirs were popular, forming an entire subculture that continues to this day.

1890s

Orpheus McAdoo and the Virginia Jubilee Singers were among the most popular of the visiting minstrel groups, touring the country four times. African American spirituals were made popular in the 1890s by Orpheus McAdoo's Jubilee Singers

1897

Enoch Sontonga, then a teacher, composed the hymn Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika (God Bless Africa) Early 1900s
In the early 20th century, governmental restrictions on black poeple increased, including a nightly curfew which kept the night life in Johannesburg relatively small for a city of its size (then the largest city south of the Sahara).
The Marabi music style formed in the slum yards that resulted from the increasing urbanisation of black South Africans into mining centres such as the Witwatersrand. The sound of marabi was intended to draw people into the shebeens (bars selling homemade liquor or skokiaan) and then to get them dancing. Marabi was played on pianos with accompaniment from pebble-filled cans. Over the succeeding decades, the marabi-swing style developed into early mbaqanga, the most distinctive form of South African jazz

1912

South African popular music began in 1912 with the first commercial recordings.

1920s

Marabi's melodies found their way into the sounds of the bigger dance bands, modelled on American swing groups, which began to appear in the 1920s; Marabi added to their distinctively South African style. Such bands, which produced the first generation of professional black musicians in South Africa, achieved considerable popularity, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s: star groups such as The Jazz Maniacs, The Merry Blackbirds and the Jazz Revelers rose to fame, winning huge audiences among both blacks and whites.

1930s

The beginnings of broadcast radio for black listeners. This resulted in the growth of an indigenous recording industry and helped popularize black South African music. The 1930s also saw the spread of Zulu a cappella singing from the Natal area to much of South Africa.

1933

Eric Gallo's Brunswick Gramophone House sent several South African musicians to London to record for Singer Records. Gallo went on to begin producing music in South Africa.

1939

The tradition of minstrelsy, joined with other forms, contributed to the development of isicathamiya, This music form had its first major hit this year with the song "Mbube", an adaptation of a traditional Zulu melody which has been recycled and reworked innumerable times since then, often known as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds, recorded "Mbube" it was probably the first African recording to sell more than 100,000 copies.

The development of Music in South Africa timeline 1600-2004
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Mbube

Mbube is a form of South African vocal music, made famous by the South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The word mbube means "lion" in Zulu.[1] Traditionally performed a cappella, the members of the group are male although a few groups have a female singer. In this form, groups of voices singing homophonically in rhythmic unison are employed to create intricate harmonies and textures.

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Isicathamiya

Isicathamiya (with the "c" pronounced as a dental click) is a singing style that originated from the South African Zulus. In European understanding, a cappella is also used to describe this form of singing.

Although the style originated in the 20th century, specifically in the 1920s and 1930s, many academics argue it can be traced back to the end of the 19th century. They believe the roots of isicathamiya are found in the American minstrels and ragtime US vaudeville troupes that toured South Africa extensively in 1860. Isicathamiya would have merged from a combination of minstrel inspired songs and Zulu traditional music.[1]

Culturally and traditionally, isicathamiya is influenced by Zulu indigenous beliefs such as: belief in Communalism which is expressed in the Zulu dictum, "umuntu, ngumuntu, ngabantu" , competition, strength and power associated with animals, reverence of the fireplace as a resource for food and warmth and, dreams for communicating with ancestors. The expression "umuntu, ngumuntu, ngabantu" which means "a person is a person because of other people", dominates Zulu social organization and is used as a tool to strengthen social harmony. In the Zulu community, competition is highly valued, especially with music, as it is seen as a social issue which is subject to competition. It is also perceived as a public platform in which people can establish a concept of identity in a community. Isicathamiya performers improve their image by winning competitions. In Zulu folklore, bulls are a common symbol of power and masculinity. Other wild animals such as snakes, crocodiles, tigers and lions are expressions of power relations and assertion of power in competitive isicathamiya competitions. Early isicathamiya groups were named after animals such as Empangeni Home Tigers and Brave Lion Singers.

The fireplace is used metaphorically for the "cooking of songs" in isicathamiya stage performances. Emphasis is placed on the social organization based on the Zulu indigiounous residence which took for in a circular bee-hive grass hut and at the center the head of surrounded by wives and children. The same formation takes places when isicathamiya songs were created with the leader in the center of the group. Dreams were an essential part of communicating with ancestors and formed part of a deeply rooted Zulu religious though process. Some isicathamiya musicians claim some of their songs were created in the spiritual realm given to them by ancestors.[2] Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo explains he composes through dreams whereby for six months in the 1960s he was visited by voices in his dreams. These were spiritual elders who were singing in the isicathamiya style. He experienced a final examination where each of the twenty-four elders asked him a musical question and Shabalala achieved a perfect score.[3]

STYLISTIC HISTORY OF ISICATHAMIYA

The origins of isicathamiya are rooted in American minstrelsy and ragtime. U.S. vaudeville troupes such as Orpheus McAdoo and his Virginia Jubilee Singers toured South Africa extensively from 1890, inspiring the formation of numerous Black South African groups whose imitation of crude black-face troupes, song repertoire, and musical instruments signaled notions of cultural progress and self-improvement.

Even earlier, the educated, landed Black elite, or amakholwa (believers), whose Christian missionary education instilled in them the desire to imitate all things British, performed choral singing (imusic) - one of the main symbols of identification with Victorian values. Sankey and Moody urban revival hymns learned from the hymnal of the American Board Missions were central to the repertoire.

The Native Lands Act (1913) prohibited Black property ownership and forced thousands of indigenous peoples from their ancestral land. This devastating piece of legislation led to increasing political repression of all Black South Africans, regardless of educational, religious, and class status. In response, religious hymns were replaced with minstrelsy and other forms of African-American music and dance, as these performance models were considered better suited to emerging discourses of Black social and political dissent. The combination of four-part hymnody (imusic) and minstrelsy (and, later, "traditional" Zulu music) thus became the basis of much subsequent Black popular music in South Africa.

One individual who made a significant contribution toward exploring expressive forms able to satisfy an emerging nationalist, Black identity was Reuben Caluza. A choral composer who emerged from a Presbyterian mission background in KwaZulu Natal, his musical education spanned the whole spectrum of Black performance (Erlmann 1991:118). Although not an overtly political man, Caluza lived with strong commitment to Christian values and was sensitive to social injustice. His convictions became the main inspirational source for his songs. His first composition, "Silusapho Lwase Africa" (We Are the Children of Africa), was adopted in 1913 as the first theme of the South African Native National Congress, the precursor of today's African National Congress. Caluza's use of four-part harmonies and melodies taken from European and American hymn tunes, coupled with Zulu lyrics, did not simply imitate White choral music but "expressed the new relationships and values of urban groups, who expected fuller participation in the social and political life of the community into which they had been drawn economically" (Blacking 1980:198 in Erlmann 1991:121).

Caluza directed the Ohlange Institute Choir, which he toured extensively and which people of all classes and identities came to hear. His concerts, considered one of the earliest forms of variety shows for Black performers, combined imusic, brass bands, film shows, ballroom dancing, traditional drum-and-reed ensembles, and back-to-back dances (Erlmann 1991:122). Significantly, Caluza introduced ragtime into his repertoire. Although black-face minstrelsy groups had existed for a number of years and had come to be known as c00ns (isikhunsi), Caluza's ragtime renditions, which combined slick dance action with Zulu topical lyrics, more vigorously represented nationalist sentiments through their positive images of the ideal Black urbanite (Erlmann 1991:159).

 

[Amestafuu (Emeritus)]

in south africa, even styles done in the native language/dialects that you think are traditionally african were/are afram influenced. As I told you before, Aframs were traveling in and around africa in the 1800's spreading their music around



The development of Music in South Africa timeline 1600-2004
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Mbube



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Isicathamiya

I know about South Africa and their AA musical influences breh... but that's ONE part of Africa, it was more modern and well traversed. Most of the other countries had their populations in rural areas and people were getting exposed to western music when they would migrate for work and school but a VAST majority of them still listened to ETHNIC and TRIBAL music. I witnessed this myself living in Nairobi and coming into contact with people that would migrate there for work from different parts of the country. Until most folks got into cities they were not exposed, their music was unaltered.

Folks were still using instruments like Kalimbas and other traditional instruments well into the 90's and they were not playing western style songs with em. There was also cross influence like this that was very common... ochestra baobab could be straight traditional to jazz at the drop of a beat same with Manu Dibango and Soul Makossa who ended up also influencing MJ mamakusa chant on wannabe starting something. It's not are clear cut as you make it sound





^^^ this is shyt CITY folk would be jamming to. In the country side they were still on some

 

[IllmaticDelta]

I know about South Africa and their AA musical influences breh... but that's ONE part of Africa,

similar things happened all over africa ever since the spread of recordings which is how you get highlife in ghana, soukous in the congo, afro beats in nigeria etc...

it was more modern and well traversed. Most of the other countries had their populations in rural areas and people were getting exposed to western music when they would migrate for work and school but a VAST majority of them still listened to ETHNIC and TRIBAL music.




I witnessed this myself living in Nairobi and coming into contact with people that would migrate there for work from different parts of the country. Until most folks got into cities they were not exposed, their music was unaltered.

I touched on this before on the transition from the more rural or trad sound to more modern african pop going back the the 1920s

Folks were still using instruments like Kalimbas and other traditional instruments well into the 90's and they were not playing western style songs with em. There was also cross influence like this that was very common... ochestra baobab could be straight traditional to jazz at the drop of a beat same with Manu Dibango and Soul Makossa who ended up also influencing MJ mamakusa chant on wannabe starting something. It's not are clear cut as you make it sound





^^^ this is shyt CITY folk would be jamming to. In the country side they were still on some

that's exactly how modern afropop was born..going from trad to a fusion of new world black music w/ trad


Fusion genres

Genres of African popular music include:

• African heavy metal
• African hip hop
• Afro-soul
• Afrobeat
• Afro house
• Apala
• Azonto
• Batuque
• Benga
• Bongo Flava
• Bikutsi
• Cape Jazz
• Coladeira
• Coupé-Décalé
• Hipco
• Highlife
• Hiplife
• Isicathamiya

• Chimurenga
• Fuji music
• Jit
• Jùjú
• Kapuka a.k.a. Boomba
• Kalindula music
• Kizomba
• Kuduro
• Kwaito
• Kwela
• Makossa
• Maloya
• Marrabenta
• Mbalax
• Museve
• Mbaqanga a.k.a. Sungura

• Funaná
• Genge
• Mbube
• Morna
• Ndombolo
• Palm-wine a.k.a. Maringa
• Pandza
• Raï
• Sakara
• Salegy
• Sega
• Semba
• Shangaan electro
• Soukous aka Congo, Lingala or African rumba
• Taarab
• Zouglou