Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week #1 – Zibote!
Posted on | August 28, 2009 | 2 Comments
This is the first post in a new weekly series on Fridays entitled “Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week” in which I will attempt to share my enthusiasm for classic postcolonial West and Central African grooves with everyone. I thought it would be a nice change from the weightier subjects (I’m preparing a new post on the problems with genre labeling in modern music, for example) and also provide some variety in content. Furthermore, I’m a huge West African nut anyway, so I didn’t want that part of my personality to be underrepresented here.
So, all that being said, we’ll start it off this week with a song by Ernesto Djedje, “The King of Ziglibithy”, entitled “Zibote”
Historically, “Ziglibithy” (of which Ernesto was apparently the undisputed king), was both a dance and musical style from Côte d’Ivoire. It combined various regional rhythms with Congolese guitar influences (this was quite common, the influence of Congolese pop on other regional styles was immense). Kane and I were discussing this song the other day and he related to me that, apparently, the song was such a hit throughout West Africa that there was some sort of ongoing joke in which, when someone made a bad joke or some such thing, their friends would clap and shout “Zibote!” I will have to get further clarifcation on this story, but the groove is certainly addictive enough to make one understand why it was so popular!
The horn intro is charmingly out of tune, reflecting Ghanian traditional horn intonation, but when the groove comes in, the indisputable juxtaposition of 2 and 3 is undeniably exciting. I am always interested in various ways of meshing 2 and 3, but this one always strikes me in how they manage to pull of simply playing both at the same time! The conga player and the drummer have a great hookup even so the conga player is juxtaposing the 3 against the drummer’s 2.
Anyway, hope you enjoy it, and stay tuned next week for a mid-week post on Genre definitions in modern music, and next Friday for a classic Ambassaeurs tune to continue the series!
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2 Responses to “Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week #1 – Zibote!”
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August 28th, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
This so weird the melody of this song just came in my head. There was a femal version which was a hit in the 80′s when I was growing up. So I googled it and viola you post it on the same day – what are the odds. Good Music – Thanks
I would love a download
Thanks
August 31st, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
Kwabena, wow what a coincidence! Glad to hear you enjoyed it!