Africa
Recommended Books
The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 1: Africa by
Explores key themes in African music that have emerged in recent years-a subject usually neglected in country-by-country coverage emphasizes the contexts of musical performance-unlike studies that offer static interpretations isolated from other performing traditions presents the fresh insights and analyses of musicologists and anthropologists of diverse national origins-African, Asian, European, and American Charts the flow and influence of music. The Encyclopedia also charts the musical interchanges that followed the movement of people and ideas across the continent, including: cross-regional musical influences throughout Africa * Islam and its effect on African music * spread of guitar music * Kru mariners of Liberia * Latin American influences on African music * musical interchanges in local contexts * crossovers between popular and traditional practices. Audio CD included. Also includes nine maps and 96 music examples.
Call Number: ML100 .G16 1998 V.1 and Music OnlinePublication Date: 1997
Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions by
The aim of this book is to stimulate debate by offering a critique of discourse about African music. Who writes about African music, how, and why? What assumptions and prejudices influence the presentation of ethnographic data? Even the term "African music" suggests there is an agreed-upon meaning, but African music signifies differently to different people. This book also poses the question then, "What is African music?" Agawu offers a new and provocative look at the history of African music scholarship that will resonate with students of ethnomusicology and post-colonial studies. He offers an alternative "Afro-centric" means of understanding African music, and in doing so, illuminates a different mode of creativity beyond the usual provenance of Western criticism. This book will undoubtedly inspire heated debate--and new thinking--among musicologists, cultural theorists, and post-colonial thinkers. Also includes 15 musical examples.
Call Number: ML350 .A355 2003Publication Date: 2003
African Music: Traditional and Contemporary by
It is customary in the Western world for people to use the term 'African music' as if it were a single clearly identifiable phenomenon. Yet when one considers the size of the continent (the second largest in the world), the enormous differences in climate and terrain producing contrasting ways of life across the land mass, and, above all, its extreme multilingualism (more than 1800 different languages constituting a third of the world's languages), one should not be surprised at the diversity of music and the difficulty of isolating distinctly African features common to the whole continent. Besides, the study of its music did not proceed everywhere with equal thoroughness, insight or purpose. This new and important book is an overview of music in Africa.
Call Number: ML350 .A356 2005Publication Date: 2005
The Garland Handbook of African Music, Second Edition by
The Garland Handbook of African Music, Second Edition is a smaller textbook version of the comprehensive Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 1, Africa (1998). It is intended for undergraduate and graduate area studies courses in music, ethnomusicology, and anthropology. Like the original volume, its division into three sections (Introduction to Africa as a Musical Area, Issues and Processes in African Musics, and Music Cultures and Regions) enables students and their professors to cover a thorough range of material about African music within one text.
Call Number: ML350 .G54 2008Publication Date: 2008
Theory of African Music by
Taken together, these comprehensive volumes offer an authoritative account of the music of Africa. One of the most prominent experts on the subject, Gerhard Kubik draws on his extensive travels and three decades of study in many parts of the continent to compare and contrast a wealth of musical traditions from a range of cultures. In the first volume, Kubik describes and examines xylophone playing in southern Uganda and harp music from the Central African Republic; compares multi-part singing from across the continent; and explores movement and sound in eastern Angola. And in the second volume, he turns to the cognitive study of African rhythm, Yoruba chantefables, the musical Kachamba family of Malaŵi, and African conceptions of space and time. Each volume features an extensive number of photographs and is accompanied by a compact disc of Kubik's own recordings. Erudite and exhaustive, Theory of African Music will be an invaluable reference for years to come.
Call Number: ML350 .K83 2010Publication Date: 2010
Music is the Weapon of the Future: Fifty Years of African Popular Music by
From the unique voice of Salif Keita and the hard funk of Fela Kuti to the poignant blues of Cesaria Evora and the upbeat swing of South African township jazz, African music has shaken the planet. This book traces its history through 30 portraits. Instead of offering biographical summaries, Tenaille plunges straight to the deepest, most intimate, and most significant aspects of the life and work of each musician. In a compact form, this retrospective imparts all the information essential to understanding these complex pop stars, while putting them in a political and cultural context and spicing up the mix with generous helpings of anecdote.
Call Number: ML3502.9 .T4613 2002Publication Date: 2002
Black Music of Two Worlds: African, Caribbean, Latin, and African-American Traditions, Second Edition by
BLACK MUSIC OF TWO WORLDS defines the scope of world music studies, by exploring the impact that both African and European cultures had on music of the Americas.
Call Number: ML3556 .R6 1998Publication Date: 1998
Sacred Drums of Liberation: Religions and Music of Resistance in Africa and the Diaspora by
Author Don Ohadike chronicles the struggle for peoples of African descent to overcome slavery, colonialism and neo-colonial hegemony. Tracing resistance movements from the colonial period into the 20th century through music and religion, the pursuit of freedom and the practice of resistance extend beyond the borders of Africa into popular culture in the US, the Caribbean and South Africa. Ohadike crosses a multitude of eras and locations but the theme of resistance to oppression through religion and music echoes drums of liberation into the present.
Call Number: BL2400 .O33 2007 (General Collection)Publication Date: 2007
Recommended Videos on African Music
Physical DVDs in Education, Music and Media:
- Rhythm of Resistance; The Black Music of South Africa.
DVD Video 10777 - Getting Started on Djembe
DVD Video 11901 - Konkombe: Nigerian Music
DVD Video 10774
Streaming Video on the Kanopy platform:
Siaka Diabate is a musician at Bouake, the second largest town in the Cote d'Ivoire. Through his mother's family he is Senufo, but through his father's ancestry he considers himself a Mande griot. He is a multi-talented professional musician, and for the local festivals plays five instruments: the Senufo and Maninka balafons, the kora harp, the dundun drum and the electric guitar. This film shows Siaka playing in the group led by Soungalo Coulibaly before his death in 2004, including the use of jembe drums, which we also see being made.
An African Brass Band: Traditional Music from the Coite d'Ivorie
At the beginning of the 20th century in Jacqueville, near Abidjan in the Cote d'Ivoire, traditional music was forbidden by the missionaries. But the inhabitants' enjoyment of their local festivals proved stronger, and the little town developed its own brass band.
This is the story of that brass band, a brass band that isn't at all like a military band. It's a dancing brass band, an African brass band, that accompanies all the big and little moments of life.
Masters of the Balafon series
Four films by Hugo Zemp, about the balafon, a xylophone with calabash resonators, of the Senufo people of Northern Coite d'Ivoire.
A film shot in 1955 about the song, "Bitter Melons," sung by a member of the /Gwi San people of the Kalahari Desert.
African Underground: Democracy in Dakar
The film follows rappers, DJs, journalists, professors and people on the street at the time before, during and after the controversial 2007 presidential election in Senegal and examines hip-hops role on the political process.
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.