The Curious Case of the Invention of Diasporic Identity. A Story of Jazz, Politics, Africa, and Revolution

Abstract

When Malcolm X visited Africa in 1964 and gave a lecture at the University of Ghana, he introduced himself as an exiled in his own country: “I’m from America but I’m not an American”. He was not the only one in this situation; most of the jazz performers of that age understood themselves in a similar way. As exiles in their own country, they did not simply jump to the alternative of Africa as a home to return to, but viewed it as an opportunity to be seized, more universal than any paradigm allowed before, and especially more universal than the universalism of the whites. We will investigate the possibility of such an invented and open diasporic identity. We will consider it, at least for the context defined above, as an X that provides the chance of a radical change in articulation both with the emergence of free jazz and with the independence of Africa.