Traditional / folk music of Mozambique
Mozambique is a country with wild nature and many different type of ethnic groups. It had been suffered from colonization for a long time in the history. Vasco da Gama, was the first Portuguese who arrived in 1947 to Mozambique. They found many different ethnic groups and started the slavery. Portuguese stablished the slavery to Brazil. Since then, they tried to promote and enforce their culture (and of course music) to Mozambican people. The first waves of independent started since 1960s until they got their independence in 1975. Since 1990s, Mozambique starting experiencing economic growth with all the problems and disasters existed in South Africa. Also they passed a civil war after their independent.
Being part of colonial of Portugal, the folk music of Mozambique, had been heavily under the influence of music and culture on Portugal. Through the slavery era, as many people from Mozambique region were exported to Latin America, some music genres in Brazil and also Cuba influenced by folk music of Mozambique. The characteristic of some music genres in those areas, obviously has roots in many ethnic groups in Africa and also Mozambique. Also later with different cultural trades between Portugal colonial areas, they affected each other traditional music too. Many genres of folk music in Mozambique today are influenced by Latin Salsa and calypso. And of course they are sung in Portuguese. After the independence from Portugal, Mozambique was under the control of Socialist government and they got influenced by music of Cuba until 1980s which the socialist government changed.
Marrabenta
This type of folk music, is a kind of dance music. The Marrabenta developed during the 1930s in the capital of Mozambique. It was born with mixing of church music, Portuguese folk music and African rhythms. It has also some similarity of salsa and calypso from Latin America. And even merengue of Angola. This traditional music gain popularity with the effort of some musicians like Wazimbo (king of Marrabenta), Fany Pfumo, Dilon Djindi and many more.
Timbila
This type of folk music is from coast part. It is a music of Chopi people. The main instrument which is used in this type of folk music is mbila. It is type of xylophone. An ensemble of timbila can be consist of ten mbila with four different sizes. A composition of timbila song can be very long with many different sections and tempos. Some sections also include singing. It is one of the most complicated type of compositions between traditional music of all ethnic groups which ever discovered.
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Traditional / folk songs for Mozambique
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