S.A. Music

Beginnings In the Dutch colonial era, from the 17th century on, indigenous tribespeople and slaves imported from the east adapted Western musical instruments and ideas. The Khoi-Khoi, for instance, developed the  ramkie , a guitar with three or four strings, based on that of Malabar slaves, and used it to blend Khoi and Western folk songs. The  mamokhorong  was a single-string violin that was…

The penetration of missionaries into the interior over the succeeding centuries also had a profound influence on South African musical styles. In the late 1800s, early African composers such as John Knox Bokwe began composing hymns that drew on traditional Xhosa harmonic patterns. In 1897,  Enoch Sontonga , then a teacher, composed the hymn Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika (God Bless Africa), which was…