Monrovia

Performing Arts

Music and dance in Monrovia and Liberia's other coastal cities combines traditional African and Western elements. The most common instruments on which traditional Liberian music is played include various types of xylophone, rattles, a variety of stringed instruments, and drums. Modern Liberian music has been influenced not only by American gospel and soul but also by the big band music of Ghana and Sierra Leone and the music of the West Indies and Latin America. Gospel music is widely heard over the radio in Monrovia and other parts of the country. Live popular music can be heard in a few clubs and discos although Monrovia's night life is much quieter than it was in the years before the civil war.