Horns have been an integral part of African music since the beginning of our musical history. The wind instrument in Africa has historically played an important social role reaching far beyond artistic endeavors. Instruments made of animal horns, bamboo, and reeds have been used to create a particular sound for communicating important, and often complex, social messages.
In more modern times, African horns manifest their inherited traditions in rhythmically and melodically complex arrangements used to energize and captivate the audience. One could argue that most African horn arrangements are complete songs within songs and have a stand-alone power of their own.
The popularity of keyboards and synthesizers in the 1990s led to a brief decrease in the use of horns in African compositions. However, over the last ten years, there has been a strong resurgence of African brass sound in today’s musical landscape. Saxophonists, trombonists. and trumpeters are back to vying with each other to make their instruments sound louder than Jericho's trumpets.
Contemporary Senegalese music uses brass horn arrangements heavily. Senegalese horns reference Cuba, Nigeria, and Chicago’s Motown. These influences are an undeniable testament to the global reach of musical innovation and the borderless universe that is music.
