African music has a rich and lengthy history that has been inherited by subsequent generations. It is commonly known that throughout the ages, African music has seen significant and frequent modifications. African music from earlier periods is most likely substantially different from what is now referred to be traditional music.
Additionally, African music has never been inextricably associated with any one ethnic group. The unique style and inventiveness of the musician have always been crucial. Archaeological and other artefacts, pictorial sources (petroglyphs, rock paintings, book illustrations, drawings, paintings), oral historical sources, written sources (traveler's narratives, field notes, inscriptions in Arabic and in African and European languages), musical notations, sound recordings, photographs, motion pictures, and videotape are some of the material sources used in the study of African music history. The musical traditions of sub-Saharan Africa formerly reached North Africa. The vegetation and animals of the savanna were expanded into the southern Sahara and its central highlands between approximately 8000 and 3000 BC due to changes in the Sahara's climate, particularly a noticeable wet tendency.