If you’ve ever watched a film with the sound muted, you’ll know something feels missing. The images are there, the acting is there, but the emotional impact is hollow. Music, specifically, a film’s score, is what gives those images depth, urgency, and memory. It tells us how to feel before we even know why.
Across the world, musical scoring has been a cornerstone of filmmaking since the silent era, when orchestras played live to enhance moving pictures. In Hollywood, the tradition evolved into an art form in itself, with composers like Ennio Morricone, Hans Zimmer, and John Williams creating scores as iconic as the films they served. In Africa, however, the story is more complex, and the potential is far from fully realised.
A brief history: From silence to sound
African cinema emerged in the mid-20th century as newly independent nations sought to tell their own stories. Early African filmmakers, such as Ousmane Sembène in Senegal or Safi Faye, often used music sparingly, leaning on folk songs or diegetic sound (music that exists within the world of the film, like a radio playing). This was partly due to budget limitations, but also because oral storytelling traditions already wove sound and rhythm into narrative naturally.
In the 1970s and 80s, as African cinema began to circulate internationally, music in film largely took one of two forms:
- Licensed music from well-known artists, used to give films recognisable sound and sometimes draw audiences.
- Minimalist scoring, often with locally played instruments, due to limited access to professional orchestration and recording.
While this created authentic, culturally rooted soundscapes, it also meant African film scores rarely matched the production scale, complexity, or narrative precision of their global counterparts.
What scoring actually does
A score is not just “background music.” It:
- Shapes emotion: builds tension, evokes nostalgia, signals joy or grief.
- Guides pacing: helps scenes flow, rise, and fall with rhythm.
- Anchors culture: traditional instruments, vocal techniques, and rhythms embed a story in a specific heritage without needing exposition.
- Creates identity: distinctive scores can make African films instantly recognisable globally.
When these functions are ignored or replaced with generic tracks, films risk losing layers of depth that could make them unforgettable.
Why the gap exists
Several factors have held back musical scoring in African film:
- Budget limitations mean original composition is often the first thing cut.
- Lack of industry infrastructure – few composers specialise in film scoring on the continent compared to global markets.
- Overreliance on popular music – while African pop and Afrobeats are internationally loved, they can overshadow a story’s unique sonic identity.
There are, however, notable exceptions that show the potential of scoring done right. Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu (2014) used haunting choral work and desert percussion to create atmosphere and tension. Jahmil X.T. Qubeka’s Sew the Winter to My Skin (2018) leaned into rhythmic scoring to build suspense without excessive dialogue. These examples prove that when the score is treated as integral, it transforms the film’s impact.
Five memorable scores in African film history
1. Timbuktu (2014, Mauritania)
Composer Amine Bouhafa’s work on Timbuktu is a masterclass in restraint. Using haunting choral arrangements and minimal percussion, he creates a sonic landscape that mirrors the film’s emotional core, the quiet devastation of a community under siege. The sparse instrumentation gives space for silence to speak, while the human voice carries both the sorrow and resilience of the Malian people. It’s a score that lingers long after the final frame, proof that minimalism can be as powerful as orchestral grandeur.
2. Sew the Winter to My Skin (2018, South Africa)
This historical epic by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka has long, dialogue-free sequences, placing the burden of storytelling on visuals and sound. The score rises to the challenge with bold, percussive rhythms and layered textures that evoke both the rugged landscape and the raw tension of the apartheid-era manhunt it depicts. The music doesn’t just accompany the action, it becomes part of the chase, pounding alongside the protagonist’s heartbeat, drawing the audience deeper into his struggle for survival.
3. Yeelen (1987, Mali)
One of the great works of African cinema, Souleymane Cissé’s Yeelen (meaning “Brightness”) tells a story steeped in Bambara mythology. Neba Solo’s balafon rhythms and ritualistic chants give the film a spiritual pulse, grounding its fantastical elements in the deep well of West African oral tradition. The score doesn’t just set the mood, it becomes a conduit between the film’s mythic narrative and the viewer’s own sense of ancestry and place.
4. Sarafina! (1992, South Africa)
Part musical, part political drama, Sarafina! uses its score as both entertainment and activism. Struggle songs, gospel-inflected choral arrangements, and traditional African harmonies are woven into the narrative, embodying the resistance spirit of South Africa’s youth during apartheid. The music, infectious and defiant, transforms scenes into moments of communal catharsis, making the soundtrack as culturally significant as the story itself.
5. Atlantics (2019, Senegal)
Fatima Al Qadiri’s score for Mati Diop’s Atlantics drapes the film in a dreamlike haze. Fusing electronic soundscapes with subtle West African melodic cues, the music blurs the boundaries between the physical and the supernatural, echoing the story’s themes of love, loss, and migration. The score’s fluid, hypnotic quality makes it feel less like background accompaniment and more like an ocean current, pulling the audience deeper into the film’s mysterious world.
The African film industry is growing, with streaming platforms expanding their reach, festivals amplifying their presence, and audiences widening. Yet musical scoring remains one of its least developed elements, a powerful storytelling tool still waiting to be fully realised.
African cinema already holds the narratives, visuals, and cultural depth that command attention. When music is given equal weight, it doesn’t just accompany the story; it completes it. And in film, completion matters.
