African Musicians Research Articles

EDMUND “NTEMI” PILISO JAZZING THROUGH DEFEAT AND TRIUMPH: AN INTERVIEW by

Associated with the local swing style usually described as African jazz, Edmund “Ntemi” Piliso was one of the most highly regarded, frequently recorded, extensively consulted and best known South African musicians of the twentieth century. Renowned for his deep knowledge of the urban black South African popular music of his time, as well as for his reflexively intelligent insights into its relationship with mainstream international jazz, he is perhaps more appropriately thought of as an “organic intellectual” of his time, place, and musical culture. The article introduces Piliso and then presents a wide-ranging interview dealing with his life and work. Piliso recounts this history, offering numerous insights into many of the key social, political, and musical developments of his time.

“The Notes that bathe the Mediterranean”: Spanish Flamencos and Moroccan Musicians in Creative Convivencia

Recent scholarship in ethnomusicology foregrounds issues of globalization; transnational identity, deterritorialization and migration as they are articulated in musical practice. For centuries the music of the peoples of Spain has moved back and forth between Andalusia and North Africa. The recent collaborations between Spanish and North African musicians present a discourse of a pan-Mediterranean sensibility which articulates shared historical roots and shared contemporary realities, as it simultaneously references notions of convivencia (the shared co-existence of the three cultures in medieval Spain) and expresses contemporary inter-dependence. This article explores musical collaborations in Spain. ranging from interactive musical dialogues to hybrid fusions between musicians of both cultures. In what ways do these musical collaborations articulate identities; acknowledge shared histories and musical affinities; reflect contemporary socio/political realities and function as expressions of solidarity? In presenting the collaborative work of Spanish and North African musicians, I address issues these collaborations represent. I examine these collaborations from the perspectives of the musicians involved, and the discourse surrounding these musical creations. In so doing, I explore concepts of transnational and pan-Mediterranean identities, as well as the role of cultural imagination in constructing narratives of community and collective memory.

Capital is key: a case for migrants' cultural capital

In this paper, I argue that possession and utilisation of capital are at the centre of migrants' success and the ability to thrive in their new environment. Pierre Bourdieu's 'Forms of Capital' serve as a starting point in this research. While Bourdieu's capital accounts for the structuring of the social world completely, this article concentrates on migrants' experiences in the Netherlands. This article shows how Bourdieu's concept of capital illustrates how migrants' capital brought from their home countries becomes a source of power, as well as the difference(s) between just surviving in their new environment and thriving. Ethnographic research, published works on the subject of the appropriation of capital by migrants, and statistical accounts in the Netherlands are used. These sources illustrate that migrants face challenging circumstances in the Netherlands due to discrimination, racism and lack of capital. I show how West African musicians thrive amidst these challenges through the possession of cultural capital (e.g., musical skills).

Capital is key: a case for migrants' cultural capital

In this paper, I argue that possession and utilisation of capital are at the centre of migrants' success and the ability to thrive in their new environment. Pierre Bourdieu's 'Forms of Capital' serve as a starting point in this research. While Bourdieu's capital accounts for the structuring of the social world completely, this article concentrates on migrants' experiences in the Netherlands. This article shows how Bourdieu's concept of capital illustrates how migrants' capital brought from their home countries becomes a source of power, as well as the difference(s) between just surviving in their new environment and thriving. Ethnographic research, published works on the subject of the appropriation of capital by migrants, and statistical accounts in the Netherlands are used. These sources illustrate that migrants face challenging circumstances in the Netherlands due to discrimination, racism and lack of capital. I show how West African musicians thrive amidst these challenges through the possession of cultural capital (e.g., musical skills).

The Contribution Made by African Musicians towards the Social, Economic and Political Upkeep of Africa through Their Communication of Political Messages: Case of Zimbabwean Musicians

The liberation struggle to liberate African countries from the yoke of the White monopoly was not one faced and the gun alone was not enough weapon for the emancipation of Africa because it does no...

The Contribution Made by African Musicians towards the Social, Economic and Political Upkeep of Africa through Their Communication of Political Messages: Case of Zimbabwean Musicians

The liberation struggle to liberate African countries from the yoke of the White monopoly was not one faced and the gun alone was not enough weapon for the emancipation of Africa because it does no...

Aporias of the Cultural Boycott. Anti-Apartheid Movement, ANC and the Conflict Surrounding Paul Simon’s Album Graceland (1985–1988)

Music played an important role as a political medium for the anti-apartheid movement, particularly in the 1980s. Drawing on sources from the UK and South Africa, the article investigates the controversy surrounding Paul Simon’s album Graceland (1986) against the backdrop of the cultural boycott against South Africa. The aim of the boycott was to isolate the apartheid regime in the field of culture, but from the middle of the 1980s, the opposition within South Africa increasingly regarded it as an obstacle. The African National Congress (ANC) pursued a modification of the boycott against the resistance of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). The controversy over Graceland only served to compound the confusion: opinions differed as to whether Simon had really breached the cultural boycott by collaborating with South African musicians, and on how this could potentially be sanctioned (in either sense of the word). The incident shows that the attempt to control transnational cultural currents through political institutions in times of increased mediatisation was ultimately doomed to failure.

Making Manding in the concert hall – Jali Pop in Paris

ABSTRACTThis contribution looks at performances of West African musicians in the diaspora in order to find out in which way artists consciously evoke feelings of home and address issues of identity and belonging. Taking as its starting point concerts by Senegambian griots both in the 1990s and in 2015, the article shows the striking continuity of the performance of a Mande and more precisely Mandinka identity. As a contrasting example the article describes how the Senegalese pop star Baaba Maal, not a griot and not a Mandinka, performed to very different audiences in the USA, the Gambia and Germany. The paper compares how he addressed audiences at these concerts and how he addressed continental, regional, national, ethnic, local and other levels of identities. In rereading these and other concerts observed by the author in the late 1990s early 2000s and again recently, the contribution will also argue that in migrants’ liminal life phase of staying abroad, concerts serve as rituals of belonging to a more or less mythical home.

From Gugulethu to the World: Rastafarian Cosmopolitanism in the South African Reggae Music of Teba Shumba and the Champions

This article is an ethnographic account of how social connections are formed with and within reggae music and how the intercultural contacts between reggae aficionados are facilitated ideologically across racial, national, and ethnic borders. These cosmopolitan ideologies of Rastafarian reggae music are analyzed as a form of performative style. The data come from a micro-historical and ethnographic description of South African reggae musicians’ tour of Finland in the year 2005. The highly flexible nature of Rastafarian cultural style enabled the musicians to articulate their music in various genres and cosmopolitan imaginations during the tour.

African American Roots and Branches of the 5-String Banjo: a Selective Videography

African American Roots and Branches of the 5-String Banjo: a Selective Videography Chris Durman Public and scholarly interest in the African American banjo tradition has been piqued in recent years by a movement among many African Americans to reclaim the banjo. Groups such as the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Ebony Hillbillies and individual performers such as Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Taj Mahal, and Otis Taylor have taken up or continued to play the banjo. Interested people from diverse backgrounds are coming together to share information online at sites such as the “Black Banjo: Then and Now” group, the “Banjo Sightings Database” and “Banjology.” At least two major conferences have also investigated the African American banjo traditions, the 2005 and 2010 “Black Banjo: Then and Now Gatherings.” There are many people newly interested in this topic; however, they soon have the same realization that ethnomusicologist Greg Adams mentions just a few minutes into Give Me the Banjo (2012), “You can’t talk about the history of the banjo if you can’t talk about racism, slavery, misogyny, appropriation, exploitation, all of the things that run counter to what we love about the banjo. We’re at a point in our understanding of the history of this instrument that it’s no longer acceptable to pretend these other things don’t exist.”1 No instrument reflects the complicated history of the United States of America better than the banjo. As we know it today, it is a multicultural and multiracial creation with roots in Africa, modifications inspired by European instruments, and with much machinery first made here in the United States. Beauty and ugliness have accompanied the banjo from its earliest days. Although the banjo was brought over to the New World with West African slaves who played it for entertainment, it was also used as a tool by white slavers who forced African musicians to play banjo in order to exercise, not entertain, their captives.2 The popularity of the banjo and the music played on it was crucial to the early cultural exchange between Blacks and whites in this country and that interchange was essential to the creation of our first popular music, the music of minstrelsy, as well as to our most unique music, jazz. It was once one of the most popular instruments in the U. S. and played by all races and classes of people, but it is now frequently the object of derision and played by relatively few, almost all of whom are white. The African origin of the instrument was once commonly known by all who knew of the banjo. Now, most assume that the banjo has always been an instrument played solely by white Southerners. Much has been written on the origins of the banjo, African American banjo players, minstrelsy, the adoption of the banjo by White American parlor musicians, the use of the banjo in early jazz, the abandonment of the banjo by Black players, and the [End Page 203] centrality of the banjo to the birth and evolution of the primarily white musical genres that are now known as old-time and blue-grass music. Any small sampling of the literature pertinent to these topics would inevitably include several important texts. In the celebrated book Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War, Dena Epstein uses first-person narratives, diaries, and travelogues to prove conclusively that, among other things, the banjo did come with slaves from Africa.3 In “The Folk, the Stage, and the Five-String Banjo in the Nineteenth Century” Robert Winans traces the playing styles of the African slaves who brought the banjo to the New World in the playing styles of the early blackface minstrels.4 Philip Gura and James Bollman’s America’s Instrument: The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century uses items from Bollman’s extensive collection to detail, among other things, the mechanical changes and improvements made to the banjo over the course of the 19th century.5 Robert Toll examines the origins and history of minstrelsy in Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America6 and Cecelia Conway explores in African Banjo Echoes...

Music as a site for Africanness and diaspora cultures: African musicians in the white landscape of Finland

ABSTRACTThis article looks at African musicians in Finland and the ways that they negotiate ideas of ‘Africanness’ in their professional activities. The specific environment of Finland with a relatively low number of people of African descent inevitably shapes the activities of these musicians. Our analysis, based on our many years of fieldwork among African diaspora communities, makes visible the multiplicity of sites where African music is played and performed in Finland, and the various contexts that influence the ways in which Africanness is articulated. In a predominantly white society, African musicians' roles extend from artists and ‘cultural ambassadors’ to active change agents in the fields of identity politics and anti-racism struggles.

"On stage, everyone loves a Black": Afro-Ukrainian Folk Fusion, Migration, and Racial Identity in Ukraine

In the harsh snowy days of late November, 2004, I joined hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square in Kyiv, to protest the unfair presidential election which had been rigged in favor of the corrupt government -sponsored candidate. I was there as an international election observer and was simultaneously researching the role that Ukrainian-language popular and folk music were playing in the protests, dubbed as the Orange Revolution (Helbig 2006). Music has had such a long history of politicization in Ukraine that newspapers printed the names of Ukraine's most well-known musicians and the candidate they supported, either the opposition candidate or the government -sponsored one (Klid 2007). These affiliations were based less on political ideology as they were ruled by ethnic identity, language choice between Ukrainian and Russian, regional identity, and religious identity. Among the performers on Maidan Nezalezhnosti were an African-Jamaican duo calling themselves "Chornobryvtsi" (Black -Browed), performing Ukrainian folk songs dressed in Ukrainian folk garb for the crowd. The passion with which the crowd embraced Chornobryvtsi made it clear that outsider validation of Ukrainian ethnic identity and culture was at the root of the protests. The crowds' chants of "Chor-no-bryv-tsi! Chor-no-bryv-tsi!" signaled an embrace of non­ Ukrainians who supported Ukrainian language and culture, perceived by protestors to be under threat by the Russian -oriented policies of the political regime. The role of African and Jamaican musicians in that critical historical moment also brought forth the role of migrants and foreigners living in Ukraine in Ukraine's ongoing political and cultural identity struggles, in terms of its vacillating leanings between more pro-Russian and pro-Western ideologies and policies. Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, the highly mediatized involvement of African musicians in Ukraine's pop-folk music scenes has broadened the contemporary public sphere beyond the ongoing ethnic Russian and ethnic Ukrainian culture wars since Ukrainian independence in 1991. The continued popularity of African musicians helps foreground issues of pluralism and multiculturalism that reinforce the notion of Ukraine as a patchwork quilt made up of many different ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups, including ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, ethnic

“The Best Notes Made the Most Votes”: W. C. Handy, E. H. Crump, and Black Music as Politics

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 1909, three white politicians--Edward H. Crump, Joseph J. Williams, and Walter W. Talbert--vied to become the next mayor of Memphis. Each of the candidates utilized traditional campaign tactics to win the office, such as speeches, rallies, advertisements, and posters. In a common move among southern office-seekers, they also employed black musicians to campaign on their behalf. As African American musician and bandleader William Christopher Handy explained, [I]n Memphis as in Clarksdale it was known to politicians that the best notes made the most votes, and there came a time when we were called upon to do our bit for good government. The 1909 Memphis mayoral election provides a particularly compelling example of a common relationship between white politicians and black musicians during the Jim Crow era. It advanced the careers of Handy, a musician who became known for compositions including Street Blues, and Crump, a Democrat who dominated Memphis politics from 1909 until 1948. According to Handy, Crump hired his band because Beale Street was expected to cast a lot of votes, and it was squarely up to us to get them. By employing black musicians, Crump and other white southern politicians hoped to attract key votes, but black musicians like Handy also seized the opportunity for their own purposes. Performing on behalf of a campaign provided economic opportunity and access to white audiences. In addition, it allowed black bands to manipulate white southerners' stereotypes of African Americans, and thus, to resist oppression. Handy used his music to influence Memphis politics and to help a white politician gain power, but he also seized the opportunity to gain power for himself and his race. To play their respective roles, both Crump and Handy relied on a long tradition of using music for political purposes, which had its roots in slavery. (1) A LONG TRADITION Early relationships between black and white Americans and black music, which developed during slavery and changed after emancipation, helped shape the ways in which each group later used black music for political purposes. In the first contact between Europeans and Africans, travelers remarked that African people possessed a natural musical ability and made better music than any other race. Thomas Jefferson expanded on this idea in later years, writing, [In] music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and His statement stood in sharp contrast to other characterizations he put forth, including never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration. Perhaps that is why he questioned the very talent he praised, asking, [whether] they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. In contrast to European styles of music, African music, from the white southern perspective, seemed childlike and primitive. By observing African slaves playing music, many white Americans assumed that slaves enjoyed their lives and their status and characterized the African people as fun loving and joyful. (2) For the most part, white slaveholders encouraged enslaved people to play and sing at work, and many African Americans embraced the opportunity. They sang songs, usually in call-and-response form, to set the pace of work, to lessen the monotony of a long day, and to lift the spirits of workers. Enslaved people used the music to make their work more endurable while also reinvigorating their African culture in the New World. (3) Often at the encouragement of their masters, African Americans also played music and sang songs on their own time, specifically in the evenings and on Sundays, as well as at festivals, funerals, and religious ceremonies. During such times, African musicians used drums to set the rhythm for a variety of dances, such as patting juba, which consisted of slapping hands to feet and shoulders while keeping time. …

Singing me to you

This article is concerned with the noticeable increase in musicians from previously disadvantaged communities (population groups who were previously disenfranchised) in South Africa who are studying, researching and performing Western art music. Because of the apparent discrepancy between the cultural and social contexts from which the musicians and the music originate, the article briefly considers the relationship between music, context and culture. African musicians’ interest in Western art music should not be attributed to Western art music only now being discovered by these communities, but rather to an increase in opportunities for these musicians to formally study and research this music. This article specifically examines the rise in the involvement of African singers in opera. It provides an overview of the reasons for this rise and points out some of the challenges facing voice lecturers at tertiary institutions. Finally, the article gives some feedback on how students who had been part of the North-South-South Project experienced this opportunity to study abroad.

‘Brains, means, lyrical ammunition’: hip-hop and socio-racial agency among African Students in Kharkiv, Ukraine

AbstractIn the last decade, multi-racial hip-hop scenes in Kharkiv, a predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian city close to the Russian border, have fostered the development of socially-conscious hip-hop among African students. Drawing on musical elements from their respective home countries, the US and local hip-hop traditions, African male youths use Ukrainian-, Russian- and English-language lyrics to express concerns about socio-economic status, personal struggle and racial inclusion. This study analyses how African musicians use hip-hop as a social means through which to fight the escalating violence against dark-skinned foreigners and migrants. It draws on ethnographic data to identify several ways in which African-performed hip-hop has influenced contemporary public opinions regarding ‘black’ identity in eastern Ukraine.

“On stage, everyone loves a Black”: Afro-Ukrainian Folk Fusion, Migration, and Racial Identity in Ukraine

In the harsh snowy days of late November, 2004, I joined hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square in Kyiv, to protest the unfair presidential election which had been rigged in favor of the corrupt government -sponsored candidate. I was there as an international election observer and was simultaneously researching the role that Ukrainian-language popular and folk music were playing in the protests, dubbed as the Orange Revolution (Helbig 2006). Music has had such a long history of politicization in Ukraine that newspapers printed the names of Ukraine's most well-known musicians and the candidate they supported, either the opposition candidate or the government -sponsored one (Klid 2007). These affiliations were based less on political ideology as they were ruled by ethnic identity, language choice between Ukrainian and Russian, regional identity, and religious identity. Among the performers on Maidan Nezalezhnosti were an African-Jamaican duo calling themselves (Black -Browed), performing Ukrainian folk songs dressed in Ukrainian folk garb for the crowd. The passion with which the crowd embraced Chornobryvtsi made it clear that outsider validation of Ukrainian ethnic identity and culture was at the root of the protests. The crowds' chants of Chor-no-bryv-tsi! signaled an embrace of non­ Ukrainians who supported Ukrainian language and culture, perceived by protestors to be under threat by the Russian -oriented policies of the political regime. The role of African and Jamaican musicians in that critical historical moment also brought forth the role of migrants and foreigners living in Ukraine in Ukraine's ongoing political and cultural identity struggles, in terms of its vacillating leanings between more pro-Russian and pro-Western ideologies and policies. Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, the highly mediatized involvement of African musicians in Ukraine's pop-folk music scenes has broadened the contemporary public sphere beyond the ongoing ethnic Russian and ethnic Ukrainian culture wars since Ukrainian independence in 1991. The continued popularity of African musicians helps foreground issues of pluralism and multiculturalism that reinforce the notion of Ukraine as a patchwork quilt made up of many different ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups, including ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, ethnic

Talking Drums in Los Angeles: Brokering Culture in an American Metropolis

My mission in life is not only to make the dundun a universal instrument, but also to transmit the family aspect of African life to all the people of the universe. I am interested in using this medium to unify the people of all races and colors. My students at present are reflecting this dream, because I have students from all ethnic groups learning to play the drum. Francis Awe, liner notes to Oro ljinle (1997) Nigerian musician Francis Awe has been performing and promoting dundun, a family of Yoruba drums, in Los Angeles concert halls, communities, and classrooms for over twenty-five years. Awe exhibits a persona both rooted and worldly: a Yoruba talking drummer on a mission to bring his music to the people of the world. Adopted as his home in 1983, Los Angeles would come to embody this world--a global metropolis in which he would realize much of his life's work. Performing in American film and television, and recording with major-label stars like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, Awe adapted dundun to new idioms and contexts. He used the instrument to enter into cross-cultural dialogues with Cuban and Indian musicians, and opened up new creative and commercial potential by designing a signature drum for Remo World Percussion. Awe's expansive vision is evident, as well, in the multiethnic composition of his Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble, an accomplishment about which he expresses great pride. In pedagogy and performance, Awe aims to make Yoruba music accessible and meaningful in new contexts while at the same time retaining the particular symbols and organizational principles that ground it in Yoruba musical heritage. Whether working with public school students or prison inmates, Awe tries to articulate the social and cultural dimensions of his music in ways relevant to the diverse audiences he encounters. In this way, he seeks to universalize the Yoruba talking drum tradition and weave African cultural wisdom, as he interprets it, into the fabric of American life. Awe's work is more than savvy cultural marketing; it is grounded in a sense of mission and commitment to human emancipation. This global musician, then, not only adapts music to foreign contexts, but also uses music to transform those contexts. The concept of the culture broker is useful in highlighting Francis Awe's self-defined role as both culture bearer and cultural mediator. As one who was, in his words, born into a drumming family, Awe may be viewed as a culture bearer; that is, an embodiment or representative of a Yoruba performance tradition. At the same time, he is reflexively engaged with this tradition, idiosyncratically interpreting it and mediating its reception in new contexts. More generally, the idea of culture brokering begs attention to individual agency and its conditions of possibility in the global remapping of musical traditions. Cosmopolitan musicians like Francis Awe may be creatively reformulating tradition, but they are doing so, as anthropologist Paulla Ebron (2002, 15) puts it, dialogically ... within multiple arenas including local, regional, and global politics and culture. Their agency, in other words, is historically produced, socially situated, and culturally inflected (for recent discussions of agency, see Ortner [2006] and Werbner [2002]). This is a key insight of recent literature on the twentieth-century globalization of African performance traditions: as they are innovatively reshaping their music to meet a wider range of contexts and expectations, African musicians are also reproducing their own culturally particular models of patronage, musical organization, and musical transmission across wider domains. And they are doing so within and against a variety of global and local discourses, such as images of African difference and imaginings of African authenticity. These global musicians, in other words, both reproduce and transform tradition in dialogue with the people, places, and ideas they encounter (see, especially, Ebron [2002] and Klein [2007]). …

Globalization and West African Music

AbstractThe interplay between the forces of globalization and West African music reflects complex processes of adoption and adaptation by West African musicians and their audiences. The pace of globalization and changes in West African popular music accelerated in the latter half of the 20th century due to changes in technology that allowed for more rapid movement of people and ideas. Scholars often make a clear distinction between traditional music and popular music but, as this article shows, the processes that lead to West African musical development blur those lines by linking the past to the present, merging African and non‐African musical styles, and highlighting artists who reside in multiple localities and manage a mosaic of cultural resources in the age of globalization.

Creativity or musical intelligence?: A comparative study of improvisation/improvisation performance by European and African musicians

This paper describes an investigation into the nature of musical intelligence and its links with creativity across two continents, Europe and Africa. In seeking to indentify the intellectual processes associated with musical intelligence, improvised music was examined as an example of problem solving in this domain. Twenty-four musicians (twelve European and twelve Zimbabwean) functioning at three different levels of expertise – novices, experienced practitioners and professionals – were invited to perform two pieces of improvisation and to reflect upon their performances. An empirical phenomenological approach to analysis was employed. The results show that musical intelligence in this form is both contextually bound but also takes the form of self-expression, self-actualisation, story telling, communication, and social critique. Different levels of ability are illustrated by different levels of abstraction in processing.

Storing and storying lives: The biographical illusion in three musicians’ autobiographies

This article analyses autobiographical texts written by three formerly exiled South African musicians: Miriam Makeba, Joe Mogotsi, and Hugh Masekela. As oral testimonies, the autobiographies are important to South Africa’s music-historiographic research. I suggest here that the musicians’ narration of their past experiences may also be read as stories that illuminate not only what the musicians remember, but also how this remembrance is collaboratively produced. Focusing specifically on the notion of the ‘self ’ and authorship, I question whether these texts allow a chronotopically positioned autobiographical self to emerge and its micro-narratives to be told.