The vuvuzela is a long, loud (LOUD!) horn from South Africa, originally inspired by kudu/antelope horns and fashioned from tin — now more often made of colorful plastic — that had an intense global moment in 2010 when the FIFA football/soccer World Cup took place Durban, South Africa. Football fans in South Africa have long blown their vuvuzelas throughout matches, filling the arena with their horns’ incredibly loud buzz. Global fans watching the matches on TV and over the internet were not used to the vuvuzela’s tone or volume and argued just as loudly for FIFA to ban them. FIFA didn’t end up prohibiting the horn during the 2010 World Cup, but it did ban them — and, probably for a different reason, iPads — from matches in the Brazil World Cup in 2014.
The video below digs into the history of the vuvuzela and relates it to a similar Haitian instrument.
All Around This World: Africa Vol. 2 (West, Central and South) (pre-order) by All Around This World
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