“South Africa is distinguished by the most complex musical history, the greatest profusion of styles and the most intensely developed recording industry anywhere in Africa. Despite many regional and stylistic variations, its music—vocal-based and long and deeply influenced by Europe and America —is different from what you’ll hear anywhere else on the continent...” (Robert Allingham)

South African urban popular music is fusion of many styles: so called ‘traditional’ alongside imported ones.

Taking as a starting point the late nineteenth century, one of the most important influences were the American minstrel shows that performed in that period in Durban and Cape Town, enjoying huge popularity amongst white audiences. These were white performers with blackened faces (‘blackface’).

However, when black American minstrel groups started to perform in South Africa, introducing spirituals, black choirs started modelling themselves on these groups, emerging into the Gospel type music that today is the genre that is the biggest seller in South Africa.

Already in the 1920s, in the coal mining districts of Natal, specific cultural practices began to emerge, performers merging ‘traditional’ melodies with American minstrelsy, spirituals, mission hymns, Tin Pan Alley and tap dance. Originally known as Mbube, today this type of genre is commonly called isicathamiya.

After the First World War, significant instrumental music emerged in black urban ghettos, especially in Johannesburg. This was called Marabi, keyboard music with an endlessly repeated chord sequence.

American movies and records had an enormous impact on society, and by the 1930s black dance bands started to appear, playing marabi-based American swing that came to be known as mbaqanga. The 1940s were an astonishing time of innovation for black South Africans, and genres such as Kwela and close harmony groups became popular.

Due to the influence of accessible American movies and vinyls, there was a flowering of what is considered African Jazz, once again using traditional melodies but now incorporated into an American jazz style. The popularity of this jazz genre led the way to the jazz opera King Kong. After touring South Africa, this musical when it was invited to perform in London, provided a gateway to exile in Europe and the United States for performers such as Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Caiphus Semenya, Manhattan Brothers and Jonas Gwangwa.

The group area act of 1950 made it difficult for black people to perform outside their designated areas. Large scale forced removals took place, the most well-known being the forced removal from Sophiatown to the new townships of Soweto.