Pops Mohamed

Last updated

Pops Mohamed (born Ismail Mohamed-Jan) is a South African multi-instrumentalist, jazz musician and producer.

Born in Benoni, Gauteng, Pops Mohamed had a career in music that was the logical outcome of an early exposure at Dorkay House to the likes of Abdullah Ibrahim and Kippie Moeketsi. Mohamed's father was a Muslim of Portuguese and Indian heritage and his mother was of Xhosa and Khoisan heritage. [1] He grew up in the Indian community of Johannesburg. He started his first band The Valiants, at the age of 14. Known by fans as the "Minister of Music", [2] he plays a wide variety of instruments: [3] [4] African mouth bow, bird whistle, berimbau, didgeridoo, guitar, keyboard, kora, and the thumb piano. He is also known for his wide range of musical styles which include kwela, pop, and soul. [5] He produced Finding One's Self, the late Moses Taiwa Molelekwa's award-winning album. Pops has received a lifetime achievement award in 2023 pops is also known for visiting a wide number of countries

Pops has also performed regularly with and sits on the board of the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra Company

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamiroquai</span> English acid jazz band

Jamiroquai are an English funk and acid jazz band from London. Formed in 1992, they are fronted by vocalist Jay Kay, and were prominent in the London-based funk and acid jazz movement of the 1990s. They built on their acid jazz sound in their early releases and later drew from rock, disco, electronic and Latin music genres. Lyrically, the group has addressed social and environmental justice. Kay has remained as the only original member through several line-up changes.

World music is an English phrase for styles of music from non-Western countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbie Hancock</span> American jazz pianist and composer (born 1940)

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, Head Hunters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugh Masekela</span> South African musical artist (1939–2018)

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father of South African jazz". Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for writing well-known anti-apartheid songs such as "Soweto Blues" and "Bring Him Back Home". He also had a number-one US pop hit in 1968 with his version of "Grazing in the Grass".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jazz fusion</span> Music genre combining jazz methods with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues

Jazz fusion is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of South Africa</span> Overview of music traditions in South Africa

The South African music scene includes both popular (jive) and folk forms like Zulu isicathamiya singing and harmonic mbaqanga. Other popular genres are marabi, kwaito,house music, pop music, isicathamiya, gqom, rock music, hip hop and amapiano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taj Mahal (musician)</span> American blues musician

Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdullah Ibrahim</span> South African pianist and composer (born 1934)

Abdullah Ibrahim is a South African pianist and composer. His music reflects many of the musical influences of his childhood in the multicultural port areas of Cape Town, ranging from traditional African songs to the gospel of the AME Church and Ragas, to more modern jazz and other Western styles. Ibrahim is considered the leading figure in the subgenre of Cape jazz. Within jazz, his music particularly reflects the influence of Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. He is known especially for "Mannenberg", a jazz piece that became a notable anti-apartheid anthem.

Brenda Nokuzola Fassie was a South African singer, songwriter, dancer and activist. Affectionately called MaBrrr by her fans, she is also known as the "Queen of African Pop", the "Madonna of The Townships" or simply as The Black Madonna. Her bold stage antics earned a reputation for "outrageousness"; ironically, her Xhosa name, Nokuzola, means "quiet", "calm", or "peace".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucky Dube</span> South African reggae musician (1964–2007)

Lucky Philip Dube was a South African reggae musician and Rastafarian. His record sales across the world earned him the Best Selling African Musician prize at the 1996 World Music Awards. In his lyrics, Dube discussed issues affecting South Africans and Africans in general to a global audience. He recorded 22 albums in a 25-year period and was Africa's best-selling reggae artist of all time. Dube was murdered in the Johannesburg suburb of Rosettenville on the evening of 18 October 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamed Mounir</span> Egyptian singer and actor, born 1954

Mohamed Mounir is an Egyptian singer and actor, with a musical career spanning more than four decades. He incorporates various genres into his music, including classical Egyptian music, Nubian music, blues, jazz and reggae. His lyrics are noted both for their philosophical content and for their passionate social and political commentary. He is affectionately known by his fans as "El King" in reference to his album and play "El Malek Howwa El Malek". Mounir's family is from Nubia, Southern Aswan, Egypt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Secada</span> American singer

Juan Francisco Secada Ramírez, better known as Jon Secada, is a Cuban-born American singer. He has won two Grammy Awards and sold 15 million records, making him one of the best-selling Latin music artists. His music fuses funk, soul music, pop, and Latin percussion.

Paul Hanmer is a South African jazz pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lionel Loueke</span> Beninese guitarist and vocalist

Lionel Loueke is a guitarist and vocalist born in Benin. He moved to Ivory Coast in 1990 to study at the National Institute of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bheki Mseleku</span> South African jazz musician (1955–2008)

Bhekumuzi Hyacinth Mseleku, generally known as Bheki Mseleku, was a jazz musician from South Africa. He was a pianist, saxophonist, guitarist, composer and arranger who was entirely self-taught.

Isak Roux is a South African born German composer born in 1959. He is known for his arrangements of South African music, especially his work with the musical groups Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Kwela Tebza.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surendran Reddy</span> South African composer and pianist

Surendran Reddy was a South African composer and pianist.

The Johannesburg Youth Orchestra (JYO) is a youth symphony orchestra founded in 1976. It is a full size symphony orchestra based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is made up entirely of children and youth who have achieved a musical level of Grade 6 or higher. The youngest member is 12 years old and the oldest members in their mid-twenties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warrick Sony</span> Musical artist

Warrick Swinney, more commonly known as Warrick Sony, is a South African composer, producer, musician and sound designer. He is the founder and sole permanent member of the Kalahari Surfers. They made politically radical satirical music in 1980s South Africa, and released it through the London-based Recommended Records. During this time the Surfers toured Europe with English session musicians.

Keith Waithe is a Guyana-born musician, composer and teacher who has been based in the United Kingdom since 1977. He is best known as a flautist and founder of the Macusi Players – a world music jazz band whose name derives from the indigenous Guyanese Macushi people – and has been "acknowledged as the best flute player that Guyana has ever produced". His musical style explores a fusion of jazz, classical, African, Caribbean, Asian and Western influences, and he has also developed a technique he calls "vocal gymnastics", in which he uses the voice to reproduce percussive sounds. Music critic Kevin Le Gendre notes that Waithe "has single-mindedly pursued his own artistic agenda, developing a songbook that draws heavily on African-Caribbean and Asian folk traditions as well as jazz ingenuity in a manner not dissimilar to a large number of his forebears, of which Yusef Lateef is perhaps the most direct reference."

References

  1. "Pops Mohamed", The Orbit.
  2. culturebase.net Archived 16 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Hawkins, Seton. "Kalamazoo - Kalamazoo 2". All About Jazz. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
  4. Jacobson, Nils (22 December 2003). "South Africa: Sheer Sound". All About Jazz. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
  5. "Pops Mohamed Biography". Sheer Sound. Archived August 7, 2005, at the Wayback Machine