simanje-manje, noun
- Origin:
- IsiZuluShow more IsiZulu isimanje-manje, literally ‘the “now” style’, isimanje current custom, manner, style + manje now.
Music
A style of popular music in which traditional or neo-traditional African (especially Zulu) songs, played in a rapid tempo and set to mbaqanga and marabi rhythms and instrumentation, are sung in the groaning style, (usually) by a male singer, backed by a three- or four-woman chorus. Also attributive. Cf. marabi sense 3, mgqashiyo.
- Note:
- The style became popular in the 1960s.
1989 Reader’s Digest Illust. Hist. of S. Afr. 418A new musical form was beginning to emerge, borrowing heavily from Zulu music, with the underlying rhythms of mbaqanga to give it commercial appeal. This was simanje-manje..a melodious moving sound led by a deep-voiced bass that sounded like a goat.
A style of popular music in which traditional or neo-traditional African (especially Zulu) songs, played in a rapid tempo and set to mbaqanga and marabi rhythms and instrumentation, are sung in the groaning style, (usually) by a male singer, backed by a three- or four-woman chorus. Also attributive.
- Derivatives:
- Hence (?nonce) simanje-manje adjective, of the younger generation (cf. general English ‘the “now” generation’).1982 M. Mzamane Children of Soweto 197A general discourse on the simanje-manje generation, as they called them, followed.
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