The Migodo (singular Ng´godo)of the Chopi people of southern Mozambique are among the most exciting spectacles to be witnessed in Africa. They are annually staged entertainments made up of dances, songs and music played on orchestras of massed xylophones played by up to 48 musicians.
Ogun, God of War
A collection of Yorùbá Oríkì (praise poems) for the Òrìṣà Ògún. Some of these were included in a previous post, but are included again here to illustrate how different Oríkì could be recombined in performance.
Ogun kills on the right and destroys on the right.
Ogun kills on the left and destroys on the left…
Prayer to the Young Moon
The Untiring Singer
A song of the Luo people, from Kenya. This is a courtship poem, sung by young women as they approach where their lovers are staying. It is sung in a curiously artificial style, intended to show off the girls’ voices. The doree ree yo is a passage of very high-pitched vocal acrobatics, compared by the singer to birdsong.
I am possessed,
A bird bursting on high with the ree lament
The Earth Does Not Get Fat
A very old Ngoni poem from Malawi. This was a poem traditionally performed at weddings, but became popularly sung at other occasions such as church meetings. The refrain, ‘the earth does not get fat’, refers to the earth constantly consuming the dead.
The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end of those who wear the head plumes
Shava, my Child
A Shona song from Zimbabwe, sung by a mother at a dance in praise of her daughter’s singing. What is especially admired is a voice higher and purer than all the others, like the new moons flute.
E! There’s my one, drowning all the others.
Listen, girls, and hear what she’s to sing!