Skip to content
Oak National Academy
Oak National Academy
View my library
0
Teachers
Pupils
View unit
New
New
Lesson 1 of 5
  • Year 10
  • Eduqas

Musical fusion in the Americas and Africa

I can explain that many musical styles around the world are the result of fusion and can explain some ways that artists use musical fusion to innovate.

Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and

Copyrights help
View unit
Lesson 1 of 5
New
New
  • Year 10
  • Eduqas

Musical fusion in the Americas and Africa

I can explain that many musical styles around the world are the result of fusion and can explain some ways that artists use musical fusion to innovate.

Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and

Copyrights help

These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.

These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.

View new resources

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Most musical styles are some form of fusion of different musical influences.
  2. Many key Latin-American musical styles are a fusion of African and European music.
  3. Many of these Latin styles have also created fusions with other styles, such as jazz and rock.
  4. Afrobeat is a style from the 1960s and 1970s that fuses aspects of West African music with jazz, funk and soul.
  5. Afrobeats is a term used to describe a wide range of different modern fusion styles from Africa.

Keywords

  • Fusion - The blending of more than one musical style or culture to create a new ‘fused’ sound is called musical fusion.

  • Afro-Cuban - Cubans with African ancestors are called Afro-Cuban.

  • Afro-Cuban jazz - Afro-Cuban jazz is a fusion of jazz with rhythms and other musical features from the Afro-Cuban community.

  • Afrobeat - Afrobeat is a style from the 1960s and 1970s from West Africa that fuses aspects of West African music with jazz, funk and soul.

  • Afrobeats - Afrobeats is a term used to describe a wide range of different modern styles from Africa, many of which are examples of fusion.

Common misconception

Afrobeat and Afrobeats are the same thing.

Afrobeat is a specific genre from the 1960s/1970s based on a fusion of West African music with funk and soul. Afrobeats is a broad term for many modern genres that are different fusions from across the continent, but have a few common features.


To help you plan your year 10 music lesson on: Musical fusion in the Americas and Africa, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Files needed for this lesson

  • Afrobeats template 6.44 MB (ZIP)
  • 10 Fusions and Bhangra Lesson 1 - Task C 4.22 KB (MXL)
  • 10FUSL1 Afrobeats mp3 backing track 1015.43 KB (MP3)

Download these files to use in the lesson.

For the performance or sequencing task, choose whichever is most suitable for your pupils and facilities. The key is that pupils understand the core common features of Afrobeats genres. Encourage pupils to prioritise performing a syncopated tresillo drum beat and simple chords to accompany it.
Teacher tip

Equipment

DAW and/or class instruments

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Sign in to continue

Our content remains 100% free, but to access certain copyrighted materials, you'll need to sign in. This ensures we’re both staying within the rules.

P.S. Signing in also gives you more ways to make the most of Oak like unit downloads!

An illustration of a hijabi teacher writing on a whiteboard