African Music Channel
OUR ARTISTS
Yvonne Chaka Chaka (born Yvonne Machaka in 1965) is a South African singer. Dubbed the "Princess of Africa", Chaka Chaka has been at the forefront of South African popular music for 20 years. Songs like "I'm Burning Up", "thank you mister dj", "I Cry for Freedom", "Makoti", "Motherland" and the ever-popular "Umqombothi" ("African Beer") ensured Yvonne's stardom.
Sipho "Hotstix" Mabuse was born in Johannesburg on 2 November 1951. After dropping out of school in the 1960s,[1] Mabuse got his start in the African soul group the Beaters in the mid-1970s. After a successful tour of Zimbabwe they changed the group's name to Harari. When they returned to their homeland in South Africa they began to draw almost exclusively on American-style funk, soul, and pop music, sung in Zulu and Sotho as well as English.
Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008), nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award-winning South African singer and civil rights activist. In the 1960s, she was the first artist from Africa to popularize African music around the world. She is best known for the song "Pata Pata", first recorded in 1957 and released in the U.S. in 1967. She recorded and toured with many popular artists, such as Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, and her former husband Hugh Masekela.
Mekurya began his musical studies on traditional Ethiopian instruments such as the krar and the masenqo, and later moved on to the saxophone and clarinet. Upon reaching adolescence, he began his professional career in 1949 as a part of the Municipality Band in Addis Ababa. In 1955 he joined the house band at Addis' Haile Selassie I Theatre, and in 1965 joined the famous Police Orchestra. He was also one of the first musicians to record an instrumental version of shellela.
Magic System is an Ivorian musical group from Abidjan. It was founded in 1996 and comprises Salif "Asalfo" Traoré, Narcisse "Goude" Sadoua, Étienne "Tino" Boué Bi, and Adama "Manadja" Fanny. Magic System's recordings in the Zouglou dance style have featured in the charts throughout Africa (selling over 1.5 million CDs), the West Indies, and in France, where the band became one of the most popular modern African artists
Multi-talented artist Njacko Backo was born in 1958 in Cameroon. He was raised in a very musical family and spent most of his childhood in a village called Bazou in western Cameroon. As a child, like most children in his village, he spent time making instruments, playing music, and learning the music of his ancestors. He studied drumming (toum and kak), kalimba (also called the thumb piano, however he plays with his fingers), percussion (various instruments), and an African harp called zaa koua.
P-Square are a Nigerian R&B duo composed of identical twin brothers Peter and Paul Okoye. They produce and release their albums through Square Records. In December 2011, they signed a record deal with Akon's Konvict Muzik label. In May 2012, they signed a record distribution deal with Universal Music South Africa.
Dapo Daniel Oyebanjo (popularly known as D'banj, born June 9, 1980) is a Nigerian singer-songwriter, harmonica player, and businessman. He has won several music awards, including the awards for Best African Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2007, Artist of the Year at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2009, Best International Act: Africa at the BET Awards 2011, and Best-selling African Artist at the 2014 World Music Awards.
"King" Sunny Adé (born Sunday Adeniyi, September 22, 1946) is a Nigerian musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and a pioneer of modern world music. He has been classed as one of the most influential musicians of all time. Sunny Adé's musical sound has evolved from the early days. His career began with Moses Olaiya's Federal Rhythm Dandies, a highlife band. He left to form a new band, The Green Spots, in 1967.