Bikutsi is a musical genre from Cameroon . It developed from the traditional styles of the Beti , or Ewondo, people, who live around the city of Yaoundé . It was popular in the middle of the 20th century in West Africa. It is primarily dance music .
11-418: The word 'bikutsi' literally means 'beat the earth' or 'let's beat the earth' ( bi - indicates a plural, - kut - means 'to beat' and - chi means 'earth'.) The name indicates a dance that is accompanied by stomping the feet on the ground. Bikutsi is characterised by an intense 8 rhythm (3+3, with a strong "two" feel), though it is occasionally 8 and its tempo is usually quarternote . it
22-543: Is played at all sorts of Beti gatherings, including parties, funerals and weddings. Beti gatherings fall into two major categories: A double sided harp with calabash amplification called the mvet is used during these ceremonies, by Beti storytellers, who are viewed as using the mvet as an instrument of God to educate the people. The Ekang phase is intensely musical, and usually lasts all night. There are poetic recitations accompanied by clapping and dancing, with interludes for improvised and sometimes obscene performances on
33-427: The balafon (a type of xylophone). These interludes signal the shift to the bikutsi phase, which is much less strictly structured than Ekang. During bikutsi, women dance and sing along with the balafon, and lyrics focus on relationships, sexuality and the lives of famous people. These female choruses are an integral part of bikutsi, and their intense dancing and screams are characteristic of the genre. Traditional bikutsi
44-577: The Saints . Quarternote Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.237 via cp1104 cp1104, Varnish XID 208966854 Upstream caches: cp1104 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:51:36 GMT Zig zag A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within
55-403: The balafon. The music itself, then, was only slightly altered, while the image and outside perception of bikutsi music was changed enormously. Other bands during this time, such as Les Vétérans , were also popular. International acclaim began in 1987 with the formation of Les Têtes Brûlées by Jean Marie Ahanda . The late guitarist of Les Têtes Brulées, Zanzibar , invented the trick of damping
66-480: The people ) sees herself as having an important part to play in the emancipation and liberation of the women of Cameroon. Among the current crop of artists are Patou Bass and Ovasho Bens , the promoter of a dance and philosophy called " zig zag ". His first album is composed not only of Cameroonian traditional rhythms but also West Indian zouk and Jamaican-style reggae . Bikutsi has influenced Western musicians such as Paul Simon on his 1990 album The Rhythm of
77-424: The perceived sexual content of its lyrics and dancing style. In this respect bikutsi resembles mapouka from Côte d'Ivoire , which is also considered indecent by many Africans. The main difference is that present day bikutsi is still often performed by female artists who use it as a means of self-expression in a traditionally male-dominated society. Thus a singer like K-Tino, self-styled femme du peuple ( woman of
88-506: The strings of his guitar with a strip of foam rubber to produce the music's characteristic balafon-like thunk. (The balafon is a marimba-like instrument that is widely used in African folk music.) More modern performers include Jimmy Mvondo Mvelé and Mbarga Soukous . Present-day bikutsi as performed by artists like Lady Ponce , K-Tino , Racine Sagath and Natascha Bizo is sometimes regarded as controversial. It has been criticised for
99-527: The zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines ; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular. In geometry , this pattern is described as a skew apeirogon . From the point of view of symmetry , a regular zigzag can be generated from a simple motif like a line segment by repeated application of a glide reflection . Although the origin of the word is unclear, its first printed appearances were in French-language books and ephemera of
110-400: Was Messi Me Nkonda Martin , frontman for Los Camaroes and known as "the father of modern bikutsi music". In an effort to translate the sound and spirit of traditional bikutsi music to more modern terms, Messi incorporated the sound of a balafon into the electric guitar by linking together the guitar strings with lengths of cotton cord. Played in this way, the electric guitar sounded similar to
121-406: Was often ironic in its content, as many modern bikutsi songs still are. In its modern form, bikutsi is very popular, and rivals makossa as the country's most renowned style. Popular bikutsi first appeared in the 1940s with the recording of Anne-Marie Nzié . Some twenty years later, the style was electrified with the addition of keyboards and guitars . The most popular performer of this period
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