Kwela is a pennywhistle-based street music from southern Africa with jazzy underpinnings and a distinctive,

skiffle Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United Stat ...

-like beat. It evolved from the

marabi Marabi is a style of music that evolved in South Africa over the last century. The early part of the 20th century saw the increasing urbanisation of black South Africans in mining centres such as the gold mining area around Johannesburg - the Wi ...

sound and brought

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

n music to international prominence in the 1950s. The music has its roots in southern Africa but later adaptations of this and many other African folk idioms have permeated Western music (listen to the albums '' A Swingin' Safari'' by the

Bert Kaempfert Bert Kaempfert (born Berthold Heinrich Kämpfert; 16 October 1923 – 21 June 1980) was a German orchestra leader, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, arranger, and composer. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records and wrote the m ...

Orchestra (1962) and ''

Graceland Graceland is a mansion on a estate in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, which was once owned by rock and roll icon Elvis Presley. His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, inherited Graceland after his death in 1977. Graceland is located at 3764 Elv ...

'' by

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...

(1986)), giving modern South African music, particularly

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, much of its distinctive sound and lilting swagger. The Piranha's 1980 UK Top Ten hit ' Tom Hark' was based on an earlier 1950's Kwela hit song. One reason for the use of the pennywhistle is that it is cheap and portable, but it also lends itself as a solo or an ensemble instrument. The popularity of the pennywhistle may have been based on the fact that

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedles ...

s of different kinds have long been traditional instruments among the peoples of the more northerly parts of South Africa and the pennywhistle thus enabled the swift adaptation of folk tunes into the new marabi-influenced music.

Origin

The most common explanation for the word "khwela" is that it is taken from the Zulu for "climb", though in township slang it also referred to police vans, the "khwela-khwela". Thus, it could be an invitation to join the dance, as well as serving as a warning. It is said that the young men who played the pennywhistle on street corners also acted as lookouts to warn those enjoying themselves in the

shebeen A shebeen ( ga, síbín) was originally an illicit bar or club where excisable alcoholic beverages were sold without a licence. The term has spread far from its origins in Ireland, to Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, the ...

s of the arrival of the police. White people, unaware of its meaning, then thought that it referred to the music when they heard people shouting "Here comes the kwela, kwela!" warning of the police's presence. Kwela music was influenced by blending the music of

Malawian This article is about the demographic features of the population of Malawi, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. Malawi deri ...

immigrants to South Africa with the local South African sounds.Nikki Jecks, "Reviving Malawi's music heritage", BBC World Service, 6 August 2009.
/ref> In

Chichewa Chewa (also known as Nyanja, ) is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi , where it is an official language, and Mozambique and Zambia. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for l ...

, "khwela" has a similar meaning to the South African one: "to climb". The music was popularised in South Africa and then brought to Malawi, where contemporary Malawian artists have also begun producing khwela music. I-IV-I64-V

Although it has been asserted that khwela music exclusively uses the

chord progression In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice ...

I-IV-I

^6_4

-V., others maintain that there is no specific khwela chord progression, or that I-IV-V-I and I-I-IV-V are particularly prevalent.Allen, Lara (1999). "Kwela: the Structure and Sound of Pennywhistle Music", p.229. .

Artists

Artists such as Lemmy Mabaso were renowned for their pennywhistle skills, and Spokes Mashiyane was one of the most prominent with his kwela pennywhistle tunes. Other artists include The Skylarks,

Jack Lerole Aaron "Big Voice Jack" Lerole (c. 1940 – 12 March 2003) was a South African singer and penny whistle player. Lerole was a leading performer in the kwela music of 1950s South Africa. Lerole was the bandleader of Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flut ...

, Aaron Lerole, The Solven Whistlers,

Kippie Moeketsi Jeremiah "Kippie" Morolong Moeketsi (27 July 1925 – 27 April 1983) was a South African jazz musician, notable as an alto saxophonist. He is sometimes referred to as "the father of South African jazz" and as "South Africa's Charlie Parker".Jürge ...

, Donald Kachamba and Gwigwi Mrwebe.

References

External links

Kwela
at

Last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...

The Kwela Project - website about playing kwela
{{Genres of African popular music South African styles of music

Origin

Artists

References

Further reading

External links