Culture of Africa

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The Culture of Africa is varied and manifold, consisting of a mixture of countries with various tribes depicting their unique characteristic and trait from the continent of Africa.^[1] It is a product of the diverse populations that inhabit the continent of Africa and the African diaspora. Generally, Culture can be defined as a collective mass of distinctive qualities belonging to a certain group of people.^[2] These qualities include laws, morals, beliefs, knowledge, art, customs, and any other attributes belonging to a member of that society.^[3] Culture is the way of life of a group of people.

Africa has numerous ethnic nationalities all with varying qualities such as language, dishes, greetings, dressing and dances. However, each of the regions of Africa share a series of dominant cultural traits which distinguish various African regional cultures from each other and the rest of the world. For example, social values, religion, morals, political values, economics, and aesthetic values all contribute to various African cultures.^[4] Expressions of culture are abundant within Africa, with large amounts of cultural diversity^[5] being found not only across different countries but also within single countries. Even though within various regions, the cultures are widely diverse,^[6] they are also, when closely studied, seen to have many similarities; for example, the morals they uphold, their love and respect for their culture, as well as the strong respect they hold for the aged and the important, i.e. kings and chiefs.^[7]

Africa has influenced and been influenced by other continents.^[8] This can be portrayed in the willingness to adapt to the ever-changing modern world rather than staying rooted in their static culture. The Westernized few, persuaded by American culture and Christianity, first denied African traditional culture, but with the increase of African nationalism, a cultural recovery occurred. The governments of most African nations encourage national dance and music groups, museums, and to a lower degree, artists and writers.^[9]

90 to 95% of Africa's cultural heritage is held outside of Africa by large museums.^[10] It is also important to note in a quote from BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) on African culture, “a recent study by Foresight Factory on defining factors of identity, 50-60% of British black African/Caribbean respondents, agreed that ethnicity played a key role, the largest of any group. The singular viewpoint of ‘black’ as an ‘identifier’ or an ‘ethnicity’ not only denies cultural differences between the population, it also denies the nuance within a vastly diverse community…. When we attempt to define African culture and identity, we have to be mindful that we are viewing a broad ethnicity comprising different sub communities that are resistant to having their heritage and culture boxed in simplistic labels.^[11]”

African cultures, which originated on the continent of Africa,^[12] have several distinct differences than that of Black culture,^[13] which originated by African Americans in the United States after they were stripped of most of their own African cultures during enslavement. Some differences are that African cultures retain tribal affairs to only be worn during specific events, hand carvings, tribal masks and dances^[14] whereas Black culture is ethnic to African Americans such as hip hop, jazz, hamboning and soul food. Though some Africanisms were retained in Black culture of the United States, most of Black American culture and history was created by Black Americans.^[15] The same retained Africanisms and also created cultural differences and can be noticed and noted in Caribbean cultures from the descendants of the enslaved as well as in black South American cultures, such as culturally different expressions, foods, styles and languages due to the centuries separation and enslavement away from the African continent, being formed uniquely in places like Bahia, Brazil.^[16]