Marabi

Genre

The township party music that grew in the slum yards of the mining towns from the end of the nineteenth century, built on a repeating chord pattern. Abdullah Ibrahim grew up playing it, and its groove is what people hear in "Mannenberg", helped by a piano prepared with thumbtacks in the hammers.

Connections

is related to

Cape jazz the groove under Mannenberg
Kwela kwela was greatly influenced by marabi
Mbaqanga mbaqanga grew out of the older strains

takes in

Mannenberg the groove is marabi

is in

Johannesburg it formed in the slum yards of the mining centres

Did you know?

Marabi groove, ticky-draai beat, langarm saxophones, jazz underneath. Mason lists the parts.

Mason breaks the tune into familiar local ingredients: a marabi groove, a beat close to ticky-draai or a lazy ghoema, saxophones with a langarm sound, and a jazz aesthetic holding it together.

Music 1974 Cape Town