Kwela

Kwela is a South African popular music of the 1950s built around the pennywhistle, in which one or more cheap tin flutes play jaunty, repetitive melodies over a shuffling accompaniment of guitar, string bass and drums. Rooted in marabi and township jive and influenced by American jazz and skiffle, its simple three-chord patterns supported street-corner busking and dance parties in Johannesburg's townships. The name, from a Zulu word meaning 'climb', also evoked the police vans into which revellers were ordered during apartheid raids. Kwela faded in the early 1960s as its stars moved to the saxophone and mbaqanga took over.