View source for Maloya

{{Short description|Music genre of Réunion}}
{{Infobox music genre
| name              = Maloya
| image             = Simangavol2.JPG
| stylistic_origins = 
| cultural_origins  = 
| instruments       = [[Vocals]], [[percussion]], [[musical bow]]
| derivatives       = 
| fusiongenres      = 
| subgenrelist      = 
| subgenres         = 
| regional_scenes   = [[Réunion]]
| other_topics      = 
}}
{{Infobox intangible heritage
| ICH         = Mayola
| State Party = France
| ID          = 00249
| Region      =
| Year        = 2009
| Session     = 4th
| List        = Representative
}}

'''Maloya''' is one of the two major [[music genre]]s of [[Réunion]], usually sung in [[Réunion Creole]], and traditionally accompanied by percussion and a musical bow.<ref name="encyc">{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of contemporary French culture |author1=Alex Hughes |author2=Keith Reader |year=2001 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-415-26354-2 |page=225 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrhClZg65EsC&q=baster+reunion&pg=PA225 |access-date=2010-06-15}}</ref> Maloya is a new form that has origins in the music of African and Malagasy [[slave]]s and Indian indentured workers on the island, as has the other folk music of Réunion, [[sega (genre)|séga]]. World music journalists and non-specialist scholars sometimes compare maloya to the [[Music of the United States|American music]], the [[blues]], though they have little in common.<ref name="thebasics">{{cite book |title=World music: the basics |last=Nidel |first=Richard |year=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-96800-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/worldmusic00rich_0/page/30 30] |url=https://archive.org/details/worldmusic00rich_0 |url-access=registration |quote=maloya music. |access-date=2009-07-31}}</ref> Maloya was considered such a threat to the French state that it was banned in the 1970s.<ref name="bbc_denselow">{{cite news| first=Robin | last=Denselow | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24300017 | title=Maloya: The protest music banned as a threat to France| work=[[BBC News]] | date=5 October 2013 | access-date=6 October 2013}}</ref>

==Description==
Compared to séga, which employs numerous string and wind European instruments, traditional maloya uses only percussion and the musical bow. Maloya songs employ a [[Call and response (music)|call-response]] structure.<ref>{{cite book |title=The other hybrid archipelago: introduction to the literatures and cultures of the francophone Indian Ocean |last=Hawkins |first=Peter |year=2007 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-1676-0 |page=135 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sa8MVme3hjsC&q=maloya+music |access-date=2009-07-31}}</ref>

===Instruments===
Traditional instruments include:
*roulér – a low-tuned barrel drum played with the hands
*[[kayamb]] – a flat rattle made from sugar cane tubes and seeds
*pikér – a bamboo idiophone played with sticks
* sati – a flat metal idiophone played with sticks
*bob – a braced, struck musical bow<ref name="garlandencyclopedia">{{cite book |title=The Garland encyclopedia of world music |author1=James Porter |author2=Timothy Rice |author3=Chris Goertzen |year=1999 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=Indiana University |isbn=978-0-8240-4946-1 |page=30 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZOlNv8MAXIEC&q=sega+music |access-date=2009-07-31}}</ref>
===Themes===
Maloya songs are often politically oriented<ref name="lonelyplanet">{{cite book |title=Mauritius, Réunion & Seychelles |author1=Tom Masters |author2=Jan Dodd |author3=Jean-Bernard Carillet |year=2007 |publisher=Lonely Planet |isbn=978-1-74104-727-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/lonelyplanetmaur00tomm/page/45 45] |url=https://archive.org/details/lonelyplanetmaur00tomm |url-access=registration |quote=origin sega music. |access-date=2009-07-31}}</ref> and their lyrical themes are often slavery and poverty.<ref name="lonelyplanet"/>

==Origins==
The indigenous music and dance form of maloya was often presented as a style of purely African origin, linked ancestral rituals from Africa ("service Kaf" and [[Madagascar]] (the "[[:fr:Kabar|servis kabaré]]"), and as such a musical inheritance of the early slave population of the island. More recently, however, the possible influence of the [[Sacred drum|sacred drumming]] of the [[Tamil people|Tamil]] religious rituals has been introduced by Danyèl Waro, which makes Maloya' heterogeneous African Malagasy and Indian influences more explicit.<ref name="hawkins">{{cite book |last=Hawkins |first=Peter |editor-first=Kamal|editor-last=Salhi |title=Francophone Post-Colonial Cultures: Critical Essays |publisher=Lexington Books| year=2003| pages=311–320|chapter=How Appropriate is the Term "Post-colonial" to the Cultural Production of Reunion? |isbn=978-0-7391-0568-9}}</ref>

==History==
Maloya was banned until the sixties because of its strong association with [[Creole peoples#Indian Ocean|creole]] [[Réunion#Culture|culture]].<ref name="thebasics"/> Performances by some maloya groups were banned until the eighties, partly because of their [[autonomist]] beliefs and association with the [[Communist Party of Réunion]]<ref name="garlandencyclopedia"/>

Nowadays, one of the most famous maloya musicians is [[:fr:Danyèl Waro|Danyèl Waro]]. His mentor, [[:fr:Firmin Viry|Firmin Viry]], is credited as having rescued maloya from extinction.<ref name="thebasics" /> According to [[Françoise Vergès]], the first public performance of maloya was by Firmin Viry in 1959 at the founding of the Communist Party.<ref>Francoise Verges, Monsters and Revolutionaries, pp.309–10, n.3</ref> Maloya was adopted as a medium for political and social protest by Creole poets such as Waro, and later by groups such as Ziskakan.<ref name="encyc" /> Since the start of the 1980s, maloya groups, such as [[Ziskakan]], [[Baster (band)|Baster]], Firmin Viry, Granmoun Baba, Rwa Kaff and Ti Fock, some mixing maloya with other genres such as séga, [[Zouk (musical movement)|zouk]], [[reggae]], samba, afrobeat, [[jazz]] and [[rock music|rock]], have had recognition outside the island.<ref>{{cite book
 |title=Music is the weapon of the future: fifty years of African popular music
 |author=Frank Tenaille
 |publisher=Chicago Review Press
 |year=2002
 |isbn=1-55652-450-1
 |page=92}}</ref>

==Cultural significance==
Maloya was inscribed in 2009 on the [[Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity]] of [[UNESCO]] for [[France]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?RL=00249|title=Intangible Heritage Home – intangible heritage – Culture Sector – UNESCO|website=www.unesco.org|language=en|access-date=2018-09-17}}</ref>

This musical form was the subject of a 1994 documentary film by Jean Paul Roig, entitled ''Maloya Dousman''.<ref name=FCAT>{{cite web|title=Maloya Dousman|url=http://www.fcat.es/FCAT/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=item&item_id=528&Itemid=37|work=Festival listing|publisher=[[African Film Festival of Cordoba]]|access-date=12 March 2012}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Sega music]], the other traditional music of Réunion
*[[Music of Réunion]]
*[[List of Réunionnais]]
*{{section link|List of blues genres|Blues-like genres}}

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
{{Commons}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110706222436/http://www.celat.ulaval.ca/histoire.memoire/cm_articles/cm3_4_lagarde.pdf Article on maloya at Université Laval (in French)]

{{Genres of African popular music}}
{{UNESCO Oral and Intangible music}}

[[Category:Music of Réunion]]
[[Category:Music of East Africa]]
[[Category:French styles of music]]
[[Category:Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity]]
[[Category:African music genres]]