Musics of the Black Atlantic: Highlife, Rumba, and Afrobeat

Abstract

The maritime revolutions of the 15th century opened up and helped create an Atlantic world that was connected not only economically, but also politically and culturally. The forced migration of some twelve million African captives to the Americas has received considerable academic attention, but far less effort has gone into examining the long process of cultural exchange and innovation that occurred between the African diaspora in the Americas (particularly in Brazil and the Caribbean) and communities in Africa. The first step of the process was the creation of multicultural African diasporic communities in the Americas. These communities not only blended a variety of African cultural forms into new diasporic African cultures, but also incorporated elements of Native American and European practices, ideas, and instruments into their communities. Not the least of the cultural innovations that would come out of this centuries-long process were a number of Afro-Latin, Afro-Caribbean, and African American musical styles. By the 19th century, the musical forms that had developed in the African Atlantic diaspora became increasingly influential in Africa itself, often traveling with Black colonial troops or seamen from the Americas. As the steamship revolutions of the 19th century cut the distance between Africa and the Americas, these exchanges accelerated. The colonial conquests of the late 19th century also served to connect Africa and its Atlantic diaspora more closely, whether via increased mobility of individuals or through new technological mediums such as the phonograph record. The result, in the 20th century, was the innovation of a number of musical styles that combined contemporary African tonal structures, rhythms, and forms with wave after wave of Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latin, and African American musical forms and styles, as well as with new instruments that themselves introduced new sounds and musical potentialities. From this ever-accelerating exchange came a myriad of musical styles, including Afro-Cuban salsa in West Africa and Caribbean zouk in West and Central Africa. Three African musical genres of the 20th century, highlife, rumba, and Afrobeat, not only captivated African audiences but also increasingly found a global audience in an ever more connected and fluid world music culture.