Ghetto Zouk: The Intersection of Urban Kiz and R&B and Hip-Hop

The music genre of ghetto zouk was created by Black PALOP (Portuguese speaking African countries) descendants. Some of them grew up with the influence of semba/kizomba while living in Europe and then were inspired by R&B and Hip-Hop.

A common equation in the kizomba scene that is seen is “semba + Caribbean zouk = kizomba”. Caribbean zouk was a music genre that was created by Black descendants of Africans in the Caribbean.

R&B and Hip-Hop are musical genres and a culture created by Black descendants of Africa in the United States.

These descendants of Africans, living on different continents, are often survivors of slavery and colonialism. They are all part of the African diaspora.

African diasporans:

• PALOP countries: Semba & Kizomba (music genre & dance)
• Carribbean: Carribbean zouk (music genre)
• United States: R&B & Hip-Hop (music genre)
• Europe: Ghetto Zouk (music genre)
• Europe: Urban Kiz (dance)

Ghetto zouk is a major influence to the creation of Urban kiz, a dance genre that was created by Black descendants of Africa in Europe who are also heavily influenced by Black American culture.

From this perspective, Urban kiz is not “euro-centric” at all. Zooming out and taking note of the origins of the influences the music genres and dances form kizomba, ghetto zouk, R&B, hip-hop, and Urban kiz; I see several creations of art forms from the descendants of the African diaspora across several continents that are influencing each other that have reached global popularity.

Being Black is not a monolith. I believe it is time to recognize and embrace all of the amazing contributions of Black people across the globe and celebrate our Blackness.

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