Exploration and early settlements by the Portuguese may have taken the guitar and its relatives to Africa as early as the 16th century, although little physical evidence exists to confirm this. However, there have always been indigenous lutes and harps, and a traveler visiting the Guinea coast in 1669 mentions "a sort of guitar" with six strings which may be a harp-lute. By the 18th century the ramkie, a plucked, stringed instrument is mentioned in southern Africa. During the late 19th century, colonial expansion by the British and French, and links with Brazil and the Caribbean, brought the guitar to West Africa. By the late 1920s, the instrument was well established and singers and groups with guitars traveled to London to make recordings.

African styles

Capos are often used to play guitars with gut and steel strings with standard and unusual open tunings to give higher register open-string positions, and many African guitarists play by plucking with a finger and thumb. Musical forms are often based on indigenous rhythmic approaches; cyclical melodies mixed with basic chords, bass runs and added fills are played with an infectious dancing momentum.

In Ghana, the introduction of the early style known as palm-wine highlife is linked with the traditions of the Kru fishermen and sailors. In 1928, Ghanaian guitarists Kwame Asare (Jacob Sam) and H. E. Biney in the Kumasi Trio can be heard using repeating melodic figures in an eight-beat pattern to support the song "Yaa Amponsah." Kwame Asare's nephew Kwa Mensah took up the guitar and became a prolific recording artist during the 1950s.

With the advent of radio and recordings and the subsequent dissemination of ideas, the developing towns on the west coast of Africa became musical centers, where visiting musicians and recordings of styles ranging from jazz to Brazilian and Cuban music could be heard and assimilated. Church music and styles from across the Atlantic helped to shape the development, and ideas were incorporated from calypso, rhumba, and samba rhythms.

Nigeria, adjacent to Ghana, developed its own version of palm-wine highlife; a hybrid indigenous crossover style termed juju appears in the early 1930s in Western Nigeria, centered on Lagos, and is associated withTunde King (b. 1910), who can be heard on "Oba Oyinbo" (1936) playing a clipped, syncopated rhythm on guitar-banjo. Irewolede Denge was a palm-wine guitarist who started recording for Zonophone in 1929. He plays with rich warmth and his gentle, lilting style with melodic passages answering the vocal line can be heard on "Orin Asape Eko" (1937). He has been called "the grandfather of juju."

Electric developments

In the Congo region from the 1940s onward, a traditional acoustic palm-wine style was being played by figures such as Mwenda Jean Bosco. In cities such as Kinshasa, a contrasting urban music was developing. The legendary player was Franco (Franco Luambo Makiadi, 1938—89), born outside Kinshasa, who started recording in the early 1950s. He took up electric guitar and formed his own group, OK Jazz, in 1956. They developed their own heavily Latin-influenced rhumba fusion style. Franco has a bright sound and uses thirds and plays melodic fills figures and countermelodies and chords in songs. On recordings from the late 1950s and early 1960s, he plays unison lines with the saxophone and often uses electric tremolo effects to give a shimmering sound. Tracks such as "Ata Osali Ngai Se NaYe" and "Ah Nazangi Tata" have a strong Latin and Caribbean flavor.

During the 1960s, Franco moved away from overt outside influences and developed a more African sound. At the beginning of the early 1970s, he can be heard playing acoustic melodic intros and rhythms on "Bomba L'Heure" and "FungolaYa Mbanda."

Another Congolese guitarist, Dr. Nico (1939—85), played lead guitar in a group with his brother on rhythm guitar, basing their style on that of the indigenous xylophone. Nico's supple, resonant electric style and glistening sound can be heard on "BilombeYa Africa" (1962—63), on which he plays chordal melodic fills and solos. In Ghana, the African Brothers Band with Nana Ampadu emerged in 1967, producing a style that integrated rock and reggae rhythms.

In Nigeria in the 1960s, Ebenezer Obey (b. 1942), working with up to 20 musicians in the International Brothers group, developed a jiving, electric juju style. Highlife continued in the hands of musicians such as Charles Kofi Mann. During the late 1960s, soukous — a rhumba variant with an African rhythm — evolved in Congo, and traditional tunes were recorded with soukous rhythm. Larger bands were also fashionable, often with three or more guitarists. One played lead, another played rhythm, and a third took a middle part often using an interlocking single note pattern.

Guitars increasingly interacted with percussion and emulated indigenous rhythmic styles. Franco's band had three lead guitarists in the 1970s, and by this time soukous had become a term for a wide number of rhythmic styles all over West Africa. In Nigeria, the Kabaka International Band had formed with guitarist Godwin Kabaka Opara, whose jiving, repetitive guitar rhythm with an abrasive sound can be heard on "Onye Mere Ihe Akaya" (1978).

Early highlife bands

During the 1950s, acoustic groups with guitars playing melodic variations and rhythm parts started to pave the way for guitar groups. In Ghana, highlife was further developed in the 1950s by the guitarist E. K. Nyame (1927-77), who led his own band using a rhythm section with bass and percussion. In Nigeria, a sophisticated sound was being played from the 1950s by trumpet-player and bandleader E.T. Mensah (1919-96), "The King Of Highlife." His brass-dominated group played Latin and African music and, from the end of the 1950s, included electric guitarists playing lines with a tremolo sound.

Koo nimo

Traditional acoustic guitarist Koo Nimo (Daniel Kwabena Amponsah, b. 1934) grew up listening to the Kumasi Trio. He uses various scales and modes and palm-wine highlife repeating motifs, often based on an eight-beat pattern, equating with two bars of 4/4. He also uses an irregular, asymmetrical 12/8 rhythmic cycle. Nimo's style is characterized by an intricate thumb and forefinger crossrhythm style called "caterpillar walking," that has affinities with indigenous harp styles. His rhythmic melody style with lilting rhythms and a touch of classical guitar style can be heard on "Otou Akyeampong" (1976).

Around africa

The guitar is played all over Africa and both acoustic and electric styles are thriving. In South Africa, the Zulu nation has developed the acoustic maskanda style, played with independent patterns that have two and three parts, often based on five- and six-notes scales. The three lower strings represent male voices and three upper strings, women's voices.

In Kenya and Zimbabwe, guitarists were influenced by the styles in West Africa and fused them with their own regional styles. Benga Beat emerged in the 1980s with the Les Kilimambogo Brothers Band. On "Wakumbuke Wazazi," infectious, repeating chords and melodic figures with dry, brittle interlocking fills contrast with minimal fills and sound created by using a vibrating pick on one note and playing behind the bridge.

Zimbabwe is dominated by the Shona tribe, whose mbira thumb piano has influenced guitar playing. In the 1940s, many mbira players adapted interlocking mbira rhythms for the guitar, and this can be heard in the playing of Ngwaru Mapundu. Guitarist Jonah Sithole (b. 1952) drew from both Congolese influences and adapted mbira ideas to electric guitar. "Zeve Zeve" (1977) opens with a muted, weaving figure and moves into a tremulous melody with glassy rhythm parts shimmering under the vocal. On"Pemberai" (1983), the group developed fast, skittering cyclical rhythmic styles with different guitarists playing crossrhythms.

A further style, jit, was developed and played by groups including the Bhundu Boys, who emerged with "Shabini" (1986). An outstanding jit group, the Four Brothers, created the bright, layered tapestry of differing rhythms and textures with interweaving melodies and melodic breaks heard on the album Makorokoto (1988), which has rasping, dragging figures and snapping rhythms.

Today, Africa is producing some of the most exhilarating guitar styles. Musicians are developing new ideas based on fascinating indigenous instrumental traditions integrated with music styles from all over the world, from blues to jazz.

Mali & guinea

In this region, guitar styles are based on folk lutes, the balafon (a type of indigenous xylophone) and the kora, a stringed, harplike instrument. Guitarists such as Papa Diabate and his brother Sekou (who played in the outstanding Benbeya Jazz National Band) and Mory Kante drew on indigenous traditions. In Mali, Ali Farka Toure worked in traditions closer to the blues. Today, guitarists play in regional styles, using chords and single-note solos ranging from melodies and countermelodies to flurries of notes supported by pulsating shifting rhythms. A well-known singer, Salif Keita, joined the guitarist Kante Manfila in Les Ambassadeurs and made great recordings such as "Djata" andToubaka" in the early 1980s.