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Swing Out Sister - Certain Shades of Limelight

Strong trembling sounds, melisma, changing the note of a syllable while it is being sung, wavy intonations, elongated notes, long pauses between sentences, glissandos, and a certain nasality are characteristic features of reciting and singing in the Islamic world... Middle Eastern singing is tense sounding and has a harsh, throaty, nasal tone, with a certain flatness.

Unsurprisingly, music was among the cultural exchanges that took place between North Africa and the western Sahel, defined here as the area stretching from Senegal/Gambia to northern Nigeria. Music in North Africa was distinctly different from music in the Middle East, having been influenced by the indigenous black populations living in the southern parts of the Maghreb and later by non Muslim victims of the trans Saharan slave trade. Often employed as musicians, these enslaved West Africans brought their music and rhythms to North Africa. In western Sahel, especially in the urban zones, Muslims adopted, adapted, and transformed the Islamic musical style. Much cross fertilization occurred on both sides of the desert.

In the Muslim areas of West Africa, the lower caste of professional musicians attached to courts or wealthy families developed a repertoire of genealogies, praise songs, and epics. They sang solo, or sometimes in groups, in a declamatory style, with wavy inflections, melisma, humming, tremolo or vibrato, and throbbing or quavering effects. This style, centuries old, continues to be heard in contemporary music. Professional singers accompany themselves or are accompanied by musicians playing string instruments, such as lutes, one string fiddles, the kora, a twenty one string harp, and balafons, xylophones.


Swing Out Sister - Certain Shades of Limelight
  • Released on: Where Our Love Grows album
  • Released: 2004
  • Genre: Electronic, Jazzdance


"The group presently comprises Andy Connell and Corinne Drewery, though it began as a trio in the United Kingdom, formed by Connell and Martin Jackson in 1985."

See previous Song of the Day

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Location: United States

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