Music as education

In the developed world, where the majority of the population is literate or has access to a television or radio, music's educational qualities tend to be forgotten. But for large swathes of human history, songs were the most effective way of recording history and spreading news - before the printing press and universal schooling made written histories possible, people depended on oral forms, from poems to songs.

While western music still retains some of this educational function (many songs have a 'message' to share), in many cases this message comes secondary to the music. We now have so many other ways of learning and sharing knowledge - from newspaper articles to books, lectures to press conferences, online forums to blogs - that using songs to teach might strike some as odd.

In many parts of Africa, however, music still plays an important educational function. Staff Benda Bilili are a group of Congolese street musicians who sing about a variety of social issues. Their song 'Polio' encourages listeners to get vaccinated against Polio - it is especially poignant because all four band members are victims of polio, confined to tricycle-cum-wheelchairs.

In Nigeria, the Kano Boys are a boy band that sing about HIV and AIDS and other health issues, trying to educate their fans as well as entertain them. Dobet Gnahoré, from the Ivory Coast, uses her music as a means of educating her audiences: from gender equality (' Mousso Tilou') and environmental destruction (' Inyembezi Zam').

Similarly, in Zimbabwe Oliver Mtukudzi uses his fame as a musician to warn of the dangers of polygamy, drugs and inheritance rituals in spreading HIV and AIDS. In South Africa, Lucky Dube used his reggae music to bring black and white communities closer together. His song ' Together as One' was the first song by a black artist to be played on a white radio station in South Africa.

The case of Simon Bikindi, one of Rwanda's most famous singers, shows the power that music can have in a negative sense. In 2008 Bikindi was sentenced to 15 years in prison for inciting violence during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Bikindi sang songs which incited hatred and violence against the Tutsi's.