Broadway, as always, is giving us lessons on language and its connection to music. The stellar new production of “Purlie Victorious,” not seen on Broadway since 1961, is Exhibit A. The show is not a ...

If you’ve ever caught yourself singing along to a song in a language you don’t speak, welcome to the club. That’s the magic of music, especially African music. From Lagos to Dar es Salaam to Accra, ...

The West African instrument dùndún is also known as “talking drum” because players can match the pitch and rhythm of speech patterns on it. A new study reveals just how closely dùndún players match ...

It’s not easy to steal the show at the Met Gala. But no one who saw the South African singer Tyla ascend the stairs in May in a one-off Balmain couture gown made of sculpted sand will ever forget it. ...

How do you get people to take personal hygiene seriously in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic? Music and dance. With the whole world almost at a standstill over the rapid spread of coronavirus to ...

In much of the world, house music has already had its day — but in South Africa, it is pop music. Here's why this musical genre has remained king. If you travel to South Africa, you will hear house ...

Covering three continents and four centuries, Bloomington Early Music Festival 2025 is devoted to early music of Black Africans and their descendants. Only during the past few decades have many of ...

It was opening night at the Brooklyn Mirage, a seasonal night club in East Williamsburg. In the main area, about five thousand people were bobbing and waving along with an English d.j. named Chris ...

Oxford University Press has announced a large-scale study that will culminate in the Oxford Dictionary of African American English, the brainchild of historian Henry Louis Gates that will focus on the ...