Rhodes University: Hosted Journals
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African Music, Power, and Being in Colonial Zimbabwe. Mhoze Chikowero, 2015. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press. 35 illustrations b & w, bibliography, index, 346 pp.
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Lagos Soundscapes. Emeka Ogboh, 2019. Berlin, Germany: Kerber. 164 colour and 85 b/w illustrations, bibliography, index, list of works, 216 pp.
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Street language in Dùndún Drum Language: a musico-lingual perspective on street cultures in Nigeria
Get PDFDùndún drum language is a practice of speech surrogacy employed by dùndún drummers in Yoruba culture. The dùndún drummers play sequences of melo-rhythmic patterns; a form of communication that employs musical and linguistic elements, comprehensible to listeners knowledgeable in the Yoruba language. Although these sequenced patterns are sourced from Yoruba everyday sentences and oral genres (proverbs, poetry, praise-chants, and idiomatic phrases), the drummers also embrace other social narratives. These include the popular linguistic expressions in public spaces referred to as “street language.” This is because the streets serve as spaces for social life, musical and cultural imaginaries, musical and language expressions, and identity. This street language, referred to as “ohùn ìgboro” in Yoruba, include slang (saje), slurs (òtè), neologies (ènà), satire (èfè), dance-drum patterns (àlùjó), and socio-political slogans (àtúnlò-èdè). This article explores the influence of street language on dùndún music. This article follows an ethnographic model, with an analysis of the content of the dùndún music and its associated texts. The article’s findings include the extent to which the two cultures have overlapped, and the various socio-cultural benefits of adopting the language of each other’s cultural practices. In the process, the article contributes to the debate on authenticity and social structure in Yoruba culture. The article emphasises the need for an integrated research approach of music and language and their interrelationship to street cultures in Nigeria
Kwaito Bodies: Remastering Space and Subjectivity in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Xavier Livorman, 2020. Durham: Duke University Press. 35 illustrations b&w, glossary, bibliography, index, 288pp.
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Tuning the Kingdom: Kawuugulu Musical Performance, Politics, and Story Telling in Buganda. Damascus Kafumbe, 2018. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. 31 illustrations, 23 musical examples, bibliography, index. 151 pp.
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Hotness revisited: metaphor and environment in discourse on African music
Get PDFThis article revisits a familiar trope in African music studies: “hot rhythm.” By tracing the lineage of the “hot” concept through twentieth and twenty-first century Africanist scholarship, I demonstrate the prevalence of foreign-made metaphors in contemporary African music studies and suggest scholars rethink whose metaphor and whose hotness they employ. What is the relationship of the metaphorically hot to phenomenal sensations of hotness? And what is the relationship of the “hot” concept to lived experiences of heat? I explore the relevance of heat as a material condition and hotness as a condition of being to music making in Africa with reference to ethnographic research with amateur brass band musicians in the Republic of Benin. This essay’s primary contribution is to apply an ecomusicological critique to an enduring climatic metaphor in African music discourse. My appeal to rethink the long-accepted analytical metaphor of “hot rhythm” further strives to destabilise entrenched theories of African music formulated by foreign scholars and instead focus attention on African concepts and experiences