(Late) Taste Test Tuesday: Apala

     Apala (AKA Area, Ewele, Oshugbo, Epo, and Ere Fowo Beti) is an African music genre that originated in Nigeria. It's a mix of traditional Were vocals, Islamic influence, and Yoruba musical styles.


You can watch this video or read this article for more information! (It's where I got mine :) )


I guess this would be an appropriate time to mention that I am Caucasian (shocking, I know). But, I do listen to a little bit of African music (see this week's obsession on the main page, or here). And when I say African music, I don't just mean music made by black artists. 


Ali Farka Toure, Fela Kuti, Omar Pene, they've all found their way to my ears one way or another. But, as much as I don't like to admit it, Africa is probably the continent who's music I'm least familiar with. 


Not for lack of enjoyment, though. They just don't come across my feeds as long as I like. And I know that's my fault, if I sought out African music styles as much as something like metal or edm, I'd see a lot more of it. It's something I'm definitely going to work on more in the future.


That being said, I enjoyed the Apala tracks I listened to today. It seems like a lot of the recorded stuff (on Deezer, at least) is of live performance, and I'm not quite sure if this genre lends itself to longer tracks, or the increased runtime of singular tracks is just a by-product of the live setting. Some of the tracks I saw on Deezer ran above 60-70 minutes. 


I suppose this type of music being live makes more sense, I've always thought of more traditional music like this as something that should be experienced in the moment it's performed as opposed to recorded. The element of community, active performance and first-hand experience has always been something I really like about genres that draw directly from tribal roots. 


Apala is an interesting departure from what I would normally hear in a day, and it was nice to hear something not so reliant on synths or digital sounds. I'll file today's playlist under "reasons to keep exploring".


-internet goblin




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