In 1977, as John Travolta strutted on to thatTechnicolor dance floor to lock his hips andpoint his finger in time to the falsetto strainsof the Bee Gees, young people across theglobe sat up and drew a collective breath.<strong>Disco</strong> – the all-glittering, all-dancingmusical craze that had been curling intopeople’s eardrums since the late 1960s –had definitely arrived. Although disco’s earlynarrative is umbilically tied to the hot andsteamy streets of New York and Philadelphiait’s worth not forgetting that Saturday NightFever was an international best-selling filmacross the globe, including Africa.<strong>Disco</strong>’s component parts are the stronglyheard influences of funk, soul and Latingrooves – sounds that were already boundinto the fibres of much <strong>African</strong> pop musiclong before Travolta donned his broad whiteflares. Bootlegged cassettes and vintagevinyl of funk and soul, including that of JamesBrown, had been popular in Africa since the1960s. These styles were also circuitouslylinked to traditional musics transportedacross the Atlantic via the dreaded slavetrade and the subsequent Afro-Americanexperience. Latin grooves were hugelypopular in West Africa after 1933, owing tothe success of the G.V. Series, a collection of10” 78 rpm gramophone records producedin Europe and the United States and thenexported to colonial Africa. The vinyl featuredCuban artists such as son ensemble SextetoHabanero, trova players Trio Matamoros andDon Azpiazú’s Havana Casino Orchestra,the last of which were responsible for aninfamous version of the prégon ‘El Manicero(The Peanut Vendor)’. The song, based ona street seller’s cry, was hugely popularacross West Africa, and Cuban styles wenton to wield a deep and long-lasting influenceover popular music in the region, particularlyduring the independence era.So it was, as the 1970s dawned and discofever took hold of America’s youth, thatmusicians in Africa were mashing togetherthe keyboards, horns and rhythmic pulse offunk, soul and Latin with highlife, soukous,Afrobeat, township jive and more. Owingto wildly creative scenesters that melteddown their music only to build it back upinto new beautifully twisted shapes, discodone <strong>African</strong> style can mean a whole throngof divergent sounds. This Rough Guideserves you up a hand-picked platter of thecontinent’s most sensational party vibes.The 1970s in South Africa were horrific andheated times, as the racist apartheid systemraged on. Tensions bubbled throughout thedecade and youth movements struggled toreject the prejudiced politics. At one famousevent in 1976, students and young peopletook to the streets of Soweto to protestagainst forced instruction of the Afrikaanslanguage in school. The police opened fireon the thousands of peacefully objectingstudents and killed hundreds, includingHector Pieterson, a child of just 12 years old.It seems out of keeping that light-hearteddisco music should rise in popularity duringsuch potent times, but the four-to-the-floorbeats were thriving. It was, in fact, disco’sinherent apoliticism that allowed it to befreely marketed by large record companies,eschew government censors and to beconsumed by South Africa’s black populationwithout challenge. The smooth absorptionof disco in South Africa into concomitantstyles also owed to the similarity betweenthe American imported sounds and alreadypopular South <strong>African</strong> musics, like townshipjive, kwela and mbaqanga.Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens werea group led by frontman Simon ‘Mahlathini’Nkabinde, whose groaning bass voicerumbles out across the texture. ‘Kazet’ isa bright pop number that encapsulates theband’s positive lively sound – a style theytermed mgqashiyo – literally ‘to bounce’.Teaspoon & The Waves released one rarediamond of an LP in 1980, covering discoand funk flavours that were filling South<strong>African</strong> dancefloors. ‘Oh Yeh Soweto’ is theirversion of the classic track ‘Going Back ToMy Roots’, by Detroit-based Motown maestroLamont Dozier. The tempo is tightened upand the lyrics are altered, but the soul-funkanchor is the same. Yvonne Chaka Chaka isa huge star in her South <strong>African</strong> home and isknown as the ‘Princess of Africa’ by fans. Hersound, as demonstrated on the rare track‘Kwedini’, is firmly bubblegum – a strandof saccharine pop that employs electronickeyboards, synthesizers and crazily catchycall-and-response vocals. The eleven-pieceSouth <strong>African</strong> band Mango Groove makes anappearance on the track ‘Tsa-oo’. During the1980s and 1990s, they were notable for beingone of the very few popular multiracial bands– they have both black and white musiciansin their line-up. Mango Groove have enjoyedover twelve Number 1 hits in South Africa,and scores of music and video awards.Another South <strong>African</strong> band, Marumo areheard on the keyboard heavy track ‘Toitoi’.Things weren’t only pulsing in South Africa;in the West and Central areas of the greatcontinent, Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon,among other places, disco intimationswere burgeoning. Pat Thomas is a highlifemusician from Ghana who can be heard onthe irresistible funky track ‘Yesu San Bra’.Here, warped keyboards, flexing bass anda steady drum groove underpin Thomas’scaramel-sweet vocal. The track loops thesame riff over and over, drawing on the verybest vamp tradition of funk.Saxophonist and vibraphone player ManuDibango comes from Cameroon. His 1972single ‘Soul Makossa’ is often credited asone of the very first disco records. The trackwas so influential that at one point therewere famously 9 versions of it in the chartat one time. ‘Yekey Tenge’ shares the samecontagious drive and dynamism as his killerhit, complete with his low-down and deepvocal part.
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