African Music Trivia

1. Which African artist, known as Mama Africa, gained world-wide acclaim with her release of "The Click Song" in partnership with Harry Belafonte?

From Quiz Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop

Answer: Miriam Makeba

Miriam is considered South Africa's greatest music ambassador. Blessed with a richly textured voice she started her career singing in church choirs. Influenced by the likes of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald she joined the Manhattan Brothers before venturing out on her own. In 1959 she journeyed to London and began recording alongside Harry Belafonte. When she endeavoured to return to South Africa she found that her passport had been cancelled and she was left in exile from her homeland. This position remained until the fall of the apartheid regime. Despite the exile she continued to record her music and speak out against apartheid. A Grammy Award winner, she was a major contributor to Paul Simon's 1986 album "Graceland". Sadly she suffered a heart attack in 2008 after performing her signature song "Pata Pata" in concert and passed away.

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: 4 Jacks and a Jill

On the same day that the final words were penned to "Timothy", 6 September 1966, Prime Minister Verwoerd was assassinated in Parliament.

From Quiz South African Bands

Answer: Bongo Maffin

Bongo Maffin started in 1996 - they are a South African kwaito band. Kwaito can only be explained as a mix of hip hop, R&B, Ragga and house music with lyrics in mixed languages with a lot of local slang, spice and attitude thrown into the pot.

From Quiz South African Popstars

Answer: Ladysmith

Ladysmith Black Mambazo featured on Paul Simon's album "Graceland". When Simon visited South Africa in the early 1990's members of the Pan Africanist Congress tried to stop him from performing.

From Quiz Ghana Make Some Music!

Answer: melisma

Melisma is the opposite of syllabic singing, where each syllable of text gets one note. In Western music, melismatic singing is found in Gregorian chant and in Jewish chanting of the Torah. Pop singers often improvise a melisma over a simple melody (referred to as a "run"). Most northern Ghanaian music is also set to a minor pentatonic (five-toned) scale.

From Quiz Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop

Answer: Sello "Chicco" Twala

Born in Soweto in 1963, Chicco's initial plan was to become a policeman. He abandoned this idea to open a disco. He took up percussion, joined the soul band Umoja and, in the process, became one of the architects of South Africa's disco boom. In 1987 he released the song "We Miss You Manelo", which could not be seen as anything more than a protest song at the continued incarceration of Nelson Mandela. One of his best known numbers is "Papa Stop the War" which was a collaboration with Mzwakke Mbul, one of Africa's most noted social poets.

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: Charlie

Who could forget Lady Marmalade, his ginger cat. The first teen sensation band in South Africa who had screaming girls throwing things on to the stage. Their music was way ahead of its time, especially in South Africa, which was still reasonably conservative. Trevor Rabin went on to Hollywood to write music scores for movies including "Con Air".

From Quiz South African Bands

Answer: Bright Blue

Bright Blue was started in Cape Town in the early 80's and the songs were subtle protests against the regime. 'Weeping' is an incredible song, which they performed live for Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa, in Cape Town .

From Quiz South African Popstars

Answer: The Righteous Brothers

"Substitute" was a Top 5 hit in England and several European countries.

From Quiz Ghana Make Some Music!

Answer: polyrhythm

Musicologist Alan P. Merriam identified the Niger-Congo region where African cross-rhythm is most prevalent, and Ghana is right in the middle of that! One way this is done is that the musician at the gyil, an African xylophone, will play two beats with the left hand whilst the right hand plays three cross-beats. This 3:2 ratio is the foundation of most traditional music of coastal Ghana (and indeed much of West Africa). When listening to West African cross-rhythm, European ears often misperceive the secondary rhythm as the primary rhythm because of where the accents are placed.

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: Dingley's

"Dingley's Bookshop" inspired a South African produced sitcom of the same name starring the evergreen Ekard Rabe.

From Quiz South African Bands

Answer: Just Jinger

Just Jinger hit the local scene in 1997 with "All Comes Round", and grew quickly ino an international act with a base in the USA. The mispronunciation of their name in the USA has prompted them to spell the "Jinger" differently - it is now "Just Jinjer".

From Quiz South African Popstars

Answer: Zimbabwe

Sounding uncannily like Neil Diamond, Scobie was just 16 years old when he scored his first hit in South Africa.

From Quiz Ghana Make Some Music!

Answer: social worker

You may think of a griot as a West African bard or troubadour. He is a combination storyteller, poet, historian, musician, and praise-singer. In the past he might also have been an adviser to a chieftain or king. A sharp wit, encyclopedic knowledge of local history, and perfect reproduction of traditional melodies were required of the griot. He also would compose songs on the spot of current events and gossip. The genre is not what what it once was, but there are still griots in West Africa, including Atongo Zimba of Ghana, who tours Europe and South America as well as Africa.

From Quiz Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop

Answer: Mozambique

With a little bit of Latin add a little bit of rock, then throw in a huge rhythm section and some African style rumba (soukous) sounds and you get the deep rich pot pouri that is Marabenta Star. In their early days they enjoyed getting up the nose of the Portuguese authorities, who ruled them at the time, by singing in their African language, songs about a normal, everyday life. Only their lead singer, Wazimbo, continued to record into the 21st century.

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: Pietermaritzburg

"Dingley's Bookshop". Pietermaritzburg is the administrative capital of Kwazulu-Natal province, previously Natal which was also known as the last outpost of the British Empire.

From Quiz South African Bands

Answer: Prime Circle

Started in Witbank in 2001, they have supported international acts and played the Mandela 46664 concert. The first two albums have generated a number of hits on the local charts.

From Quiz Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop

Answer: Uganda

Using his faultless tenor voice Samba has the power to deliver sounds that project ecstatic joy through to wailing sobs in Swahili and Lingala. In 1980 he joined forces with a number of Kenyan musicians, including the legendary guitarist Rissa-Rissa, to form Orchestra Virunga. They named themselves after the famous Zaire volcano as a method of defining their music and immediately released the single "Malako Disco", which would go on to become one of Kenya's biggest dance records. The band gained international fame with their 1991 hit "Feet on Fire".

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: David Kramer

"Vellies" is an abbreviation for "veldskoen" which is a colloquial name for rough, hand made leather shoes worn by farmers, and others, in South Africa. David Kramer had a pair of very fine RED ones.

From Quiz South African Bands

Answer: The Helicopters

The Helicopters hit the local music scene in the 80's, originating from Vereeniging, and landing somewhere between political and punk. Bernard Binns was the songwriter for the five member group. The band had little chance of international success due to the sanctions on SA at the time.

From Quiz South African Popstars

Answer: Richard Jon Smith

Smith was a porter at Groote Schuur Hospital, the same hospital where Chris Barnard performed the first ever heart transplant.

From Quiz Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop

Answer: Youssou N'Dour

Sometimes known as "Dakar's Little Prince", Rolling Stone magazine dubbed him "the most famous singer alive in Senegal and most of Africa" in 2004. His father was totally opposed to Youssou having a career in singing. That was until he saw an audience totally entranced by his golden voice. He gave him his blessing and N'Dour has not looked back. N'Dour manages to combine a recipe of Latin dance grooves with rock, rhythm and blues. He also sings in five different languages. Many traditionalist are of the opinion that his music has far too much of a Western leaning but N'Dour's response to this criticism is that African music needs to move forward. "Seven Seconds" sold in excess of 1.5 million copies and, in 1994, won MTV Europe's Best Song award.

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: in the Royal Hotel

"Hier sit die manne in die Royal Hotel" A typical scene from many small, dusty "dorps" was the older men of the town sitting on the verandah of the local hotel gossiping.

From Quiz South African Bands

Answer: Mango Groove

Formed in Johannesburg in 1983, Mango Groove was a multiracial Afropop group, not common at the time. They were seen as a symbol of unity in South Africa with the transition from the apartheid era, and were successful both locally and internationally.

From Quiz South African Popstars

Answer: Peter Vee

Vee fronted several bands in the 1960's before enjoying a successful solo career in the 1970's.

From Quiz Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop

Answer: Angelique Kidjo

Often compared with the likes of Chaka Khan and Grace Jones, Kidjo is considered the queen of African crossover pop. Her home village of Ouidah is rich in African religion and remains a constant source of solace and inspiration for her. Kidjo calls herself a musical adventurist and derides her detractors who criticise her sound as being un-African, stating "I sing about problems that are not only in Benin or Africa. I write for everybody".

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: 2000

A year of "official" mourning for the blue-rinse brigade. Bles Bridges was the darling of all elderly Afrikaans ladies, hence the reference to "blue rinse".

From Quiz South African Popstars

Answer: Sharon Tandy

Fellow STAX artists included Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. Tandy toured England with Redding, Pickett and the Beach Boys.

From Quiz Jumping Hurdles: A Look At African Pop

Answer: Morocco

Gnawa music has been built upon the religious songs of the Sufi people and, to a lesser extent, the Berbers of North and West Africa. Though its influences can be traced to a number of areas such as Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso and Mali, its strongest concentration and spiritual home lies in Morocco. Their music is a sort of deep hypnotic trance which uses low but urgent sintir (a three stringed bass instrument) rhythms and melodies, lots of hand clapping laced with chanting and call and response singing. Young Gnawa musicians such as Hassan Hakmoun have succeeded in combining some of their traditional instruments, the stringed gimbri and the cymbals of the qaraqish, with keyboards and guitars to produce a fusion that reminds one of the psychedelic sounds of the American 1960's. It has captured the imagination of artists such as Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and Tucker Martine who have all ventured to the area in search of inspiration.

From Quiz Rabbitt & Other South African Music

Answer: Bobby Angel

He was born Robert Engelsman, but Bobby Angel is how we will always remember this craggy, good looking crooner. He is probably the closest to a country musician that we saw in South Africa.

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Last Updated Jun 30 2026 8:51 AM

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