Sebene

[16] While alternate descriptive designations (e.g., "chauffée", "saccadée", "animation", "partie dansante", "ambiance") are used to delineate this musical interlude, sebene stands as the oldest and pervasive terminology extensively preferred by musicians.

As expounded in John Conteh-Morgan and Tejumola Olaniyan's "African Drama and Performance", after the ending of the last line of the chorus by singers, "the lead guitarist then kicks off the seben with a guitar rill that is slightly accelerated and is soon joined by the drummer's snare, the atalakus marakas (now acting as a rattle), and a random scream from somewhere off-mic".

[17][12] According to Guy-Léon Fylla, for the tonal center C, the successive notes would encompass: This constitutes a dynamic and commanding musical interlude, allowing the solo guitar to conclude an improvisational passage before recommencing vocalization or facilitating the alternation for the expression of another instrument, customarily the brass (trumpets), the woodwinds (saxophones, clarinets), or keyboards, for which it then serves as a substratum for execution.

[8] The degree recurrently prevalent in a song is I, IV, V.[18] There are five main cadences that characterize sebene:[18] The musical beat is delineated through a sequential count akin to a metronome, typically enumerating as 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth.

[23] This group was a replica of Accra's Excelsior and enlivened weekends with highlife songs in bars (often rudimentary or constructed from reeds) and on street corners, hosting traditional Kongo's maringa dance performances, with European instrumentation: guitar, saxophone, two-bell trumpet, chromatic accordion, and piano.

[22] Félix Manuaku Waku is also often cited as a pioneering figure in the development of sebene,[28][29] although some trace its origins further back to transitional genres like the kebo, which the Congolese musicologist Clément Ossinondé observed was created by the group of the same name, known for its rhythmic sound, predominantly produced by patenge, a wooden frame drum held between the legs, with its tone adjusted by pressing the skin with the heel.

[31][32][33][34] Their improvisational prowess, combining shouts, melodies, and vocal pyrotechnics, aims to incite both the audience and fellow musicians to lose themselves in the music, despite their relative obscurity compared to other band members.