Zulu Blues

Zulu Blues

Maskandi which is also known as Maskanda, is adequately a Zulu traditional music style that has greatly grown in popularity in South Africa. Due to its rich Zulu tradition and importance to the Zulu tribe, maskandi music is quite popular and mostly consumed in the Kwa-Zulu Natal area. In South Africa, Maskandi is known as the second most popular genre.

The South African-born Zulu traditional music style known as Maskanda is sometimes referred to as Zulu Blues. Maskanda’s lyrics about commonplace pleasures, sufferings, and experiences are well-known.

Mouth organs, concertinas, acoustic guitars, violins, and jaw harps are frequently used to perform maskanda. The guitarist performs Maskanda music using a particular style, using their thumb to play double-time staccato bass lines and their index finger to pluck a countermelody. Typically, a Maskandi performer would have a single, lengthy song that changed as their life narrative progressed.

The genre is known in Durban as “the music played by the man on the move, the modern minstrel, today’s rogue.” It is the sound of a guy traveling great distances to meet with his chief or to get married which involves a mode of transportation. Maskandi music narrates a variety of social tales, as well as individual experiences and perspectives on life. A plucked guitar approach, a fast-paced Zulu praise poetry segment known as “izibongo,” and an instrumental flourish (izihlabo) that establishes the mood at the start of each song are what define this musical style apart.

However, the narrative is not always positive, and Maskandi’s influence from pop, house, and other genres has made it more about the current immigrant culture and narrative ethic than it is about the music. It is the music of a guy who sings about his everyday pleasures and sorrows, his views of the world, and his actual life events. It’s the sound of the Zulu blues musician.