Tsitsi Ella Jaji, Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music and Pan-African Solidarity

Abstract

Africans of a certain age may well remember a time when Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” was a big hit. Blaring from shops on noisy streets through the hustle and bustle of urban routines, the song’s danceable rhythms seemed to come from many places. This was not only an urban phenomenon, however. Children in rural areas too knew that there was a Buffalo Soldier “in the heart of America, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.” Whether they were herding sheep and goats or standing on street...