Music and Lusophone Africa

Abstract

The Portuguese-speaking African countries, otherwise known as Lusophone Africa, are geographically scattered across the continent. Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and, since 2011, Equatorial Guinea recognize Portuguese as an official language. As former Portuguese colonies, the original five Lusophone African countries formed the transnational organization PALOP (Portuguese: Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa) in 1992. Equatorial Guinea, a Portuguese colony before it was claimed by Spain, was not traditionally considered part of the PALOP, though it recently adopted Portuguese as the country’s third official language. (With that being said, music scholarship on Lusophone connections in Equatorial Guinea is lacking and therefore not included in this article). The Portuguese colonial empire had varying effects on these African states even after they gained independence in the 1970s, and that legacy stretches into postcolonial discourse today in Lusophone Africa. The concept of Lusofonia, or Lusophony, is intrinsically tied to colonialism. Language can be understood as the last territory of the Portuguese Empire, perpetuating cultural imperialism and mental colonialism in this imagined transnational community. Lusophone Africa extends across vast continental territories of diverse African ethnic groups with varying histories of Portuguese presence. Each country embodies a diverse, multicultural milieu, but each shares a common language regardless of its status—mother tongue, official language, creole-based language. They share an identity based on the linguistic and cultural practices imposed by their Portuguese colonizers and further transformed to serve the needs of their local cultures. Their recognition of Lusofonia joins these countries in solidarity. The majority of scholarship on music of Lusophone Africa centers on Angola and Cabo Verde, though geographical borders become blurry with the volume of cultural exchange occurring between these countries. Musical practices flow freely through these political boundaries, and there has historically been a profuse amount of migration, both voluntary and involuntary, between the Portuguese-speaking countries and throughout the world. Lusophone African musicians have created unique expressions from their interactions with various cultural influences, and many speak to the civil unrest, political violence, and economic instabilities of their countries. The sources in this bibliography highlight themes of national identity, creolization, resistance, transnational flows, colonial and postcolonial relations, and globalization in the music of Lusophone Africa, and a majority of the scholarship is published in the 21st century, hopefully indicating a surge of interest in these areas and more research to emerge in the coming years.