African Music : Journal of the International Library of African Music
African Music (ISSN 0065-4019, eISSN 2524-2741) is an annual, peer-reviewed, accredited, academic journal established in 1954 by Hugh Tracey, founder of the International Library of African Music. The journal publishes original articles, not previously published, pertaining to contextualized studies of African music and related arts. Since it was re-launched in 2007 it features a CD compilation of audio examples illustrating the articles in each edition, which generally consists of field recordings from the article authors' research.
International Library of African Music (ILAM), Rhodes University
Harnessing community musicians as living archives for “sustainable” teaching and learning of Ugandan musics at Makerere University
At the Department of Performing Arts and Film at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, there is a growing trend of integrating community musicians into music and dance education through workshops on Ugandan musical traditions. These musicians, who play a vital role in the creation, preservation, and transmission of traditional music, function as living archives within their communities. Drawing on research conducted at Makerere University from 2021 to 2023, this article examines how engaging community musicians as key contributors to teaching and learning Ugandan musics has the potential to decolonise music education in Uganda. In describing the benefits of this inclusive approach, I critique the persistence of elitist frameworks in Ugandan university music and dance departments, which often prioritise engagement with PhD holders and published materials over community-based knowledge. I argue that community musicians, as living archives, offer invaluable insights that can foster the sustainable teaching and learning of Uganda’s diverse musical heritage. Sustainable teaching and learning, as conceptualised in this article, involve educational practices that acknowledge and integrate the contributions of all stakeholders in the production, dissemination, and appreciation of knowledge, thereby ultimately benefiting educational institutions, students, and the communities to which students may return after graduation.
Copyright (c) 2025 INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC, Rhodes University https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Considering it in relation to the earlier musical culture of kwaito, this article aims to begin a historicisation of the Black, township music of amapiano. “Kwaito as history,” much like the musical cultures in question, is ambiguous in that it considers kwaito and the musics that preceded it as part of amapiano’s history and as a tool to study the history of the latter musical form. I do this by positioning amapiano within a longer history of Black township music, focusing mbaqanga, bubblegum, and kwaito. In this article, I demonstrate how amapiano’s emphasis on dance; the role of the township; and broader conceptions of a Black South Africa no longer divided along ethnic lines can be traced back to earlier forms such as marabi and mbaqanga. I show how the music’s new modes of politics; the broad influence of Euro-American styles; and use of new technologies (specifically synthesised sounds) show a clear connection with bubblegum. Concerning kwaito and amapiano, I compare the issues of the date and place of origin; the role of international sonic preferences; the innovative approaches of young, Black township residents to music-making and dissemination. I have used existing historical accounts of Black, township dance music to demonstrate the multivocal and ambiguous nature of these histories.
Andalusi music traces its origins to the development of distinct musical and poetic forms (nubat, zejel, and so on) on the Iberian Peninsula since the ninth century. Andalusi music continues to be performed in various Mediterranean countries, predominantly Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. This article examines how Andalusi music links the precolonial imaginary, the colonial past, and postcolonial narratives of Spain within an Afro-Asian context. By focusing on performative commonalities across a vast region that have origins in al-Andalus, this article explores the concept of convivencia (coexistence) in relation to the intercultural rhetoric of Andalusi music. The article also considers its interaction with other modal systems such as haul from Mauritania, music associated with the Mande Empire in West Africa, the Middle Eastern and North African maqamat, Persian dastgah, and Hindustani raags. In the course of this exploration, the article broadens the understanding of the historical and contemporary circulation of music across continents. In addition, this article explores the afterlives of Ziryab, an African musician and a contested founder of Andalusi music, whose legacy emphasises the significant role of Africa in the musical development of al-Andalus.
Adaptation of indigenous approaches to music pedagogy
Currently, music education in Ghana emphasises Western models, thoughts, content, practices, and pedagogy. Conversely, musics that may use alternative transmission practices, express elements of music differently, or utilise indigenous learning systems have only a marginal place in the curriculum. Over the past decades, there have been several attempts to decolonise the study of music in African higher institutions. Yet, such efforts have largely been limited to adding local content to the curriculum. In the Ghanaian context, brass bands constitute one of the major musical legacies of the colonial enterprise and are a clear enactment of decolonisation, yet they are considered mere entertainment bereft of deeper significance. Little is said about them in the discourse of decolonisation. Drawing on indigenous learning systems, frameworks, and methodologies used by local brass band musicians in Cape Coast and Elmina, I argue that indigenous knowledge systems of music instruction are as valuable as Western methods. Th e notion of the university as the only place for the advancement of thought and knowledge production — at the expense of indigenous knowledge systems as these pertain to music — should be challenged by African music scholars. Community ensembles must be valued for their contribution to musicological knowledge and discourses as well as for their preservation and transformation of music knowledge. I conclude that such valorisation will be an important step towards decolonising the music curriculum at universities in Ghana.
Efficacy of Sound, Power, Potency and Promise in the Translocal Ritual Music of Cuban Ifa-Orisa
AfroAsian Musical Imaginaries: Of Circulations and Interconnections
Music and Urban Youth Identities. A Study of Ghetto Youth Identities in Contemporary Culture and Politics in Zimbabwe
Sound Fragments: From Field Recording to African Electronic Stories
Review of: Sound Fragments: From Field Recording to African Electronic Stories. Noel Lobley, 2022. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. 16 illustrations, bibliography, index. 348 pages. ISBN: 978-0-8195-8077-1
Copyright (c) 2023 INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC, Rhodes University https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Necessary Noise: Music, Film, and Charitable Imperialism in the East of Congo
Review of: Necessary Noise: Music, Film, and Charitable Imperialism in the East of Congo. Chérie Rivers Ndaliko, 2016. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 30 b/w illustrations, bibliography, index, filmography, companion site, 285 pages.
Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana
Review of: Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana. Stephen Feld, 2012. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. 78 b/w illustrations, bibliography, index, 311 pages.
Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora
Review of "Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora. Kay Kaufman Shelemay, 2022. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 57 b/w illustrations, bibliography, index, 432 pages."
This article examines the historical and sociological processes that led to the electronification of traditional Acholi musical repertoires in the northern region of Uganda. Akena P’Layeng Okella, also known as Leo Palayeng, is presented as a leading figure in this transformation of traditional music to electronic music, which has become known as Acholitronix. Palayeng is also my main interlocutor. Through Palayeng’s biography, the influence of digital technology in the production, distribution, and reception of musical traditions is discussed. The new, digitised repertoire was first integrated into wedding ceremonies, and then played in bars and clubs in the city. It finally reached the international, alternative electronic club scene. This process of transformation in the repertoire is part of a long history of local and international musical influences in Uganda. The extent to which information and communication technologies have played a decisive role in the dissemination of musical genres, the adoption or adaptation of musical instruments and techniques, and the creation of local, national, or even pan-African musical identities since the 1980s, is described in the article. The place that these forms of digital musical traditions have on online platforms is also discussed. Based on these observations, the contours of the transformation and switch from the acoustic to the electronic – while being considered by the actors as being the same music – are described.
Among Muslim women in predominantly Islamic societies, music-making remains a contested subject. At the core of these contestations are questions of boundaries, agency, taboos, resistance, and generalisations of the socio-musical experiences of Muslim women. This article explores the development of senwele music, a socio-religious music form of the Ilorin in northern Nigeria, from its origin as orin-kengbe (calabash music) to its transition into a translocal music form. Given influences of the Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, and Islam, senwele music is examined as a compendium of history; one that is not only reflective of the Ilorin traditional music scene, but also the north-south dualism in Ilorin, tensions in music-making and Islam, and regio-political remapping in Nigeria. Based on fieldwork with a major exponent of senwele, Alhaja Iya Aladuke, and her music group in Ilorin, the article explores the practice, ambivalences, convivialities and sustainability of senwele music performance within its predominantly Islamic context. I argue that while established societal conventions, such as those in Ilorin, function as a standard for the acceptance of music, a woman musician such as Alhaja Iya Aladuke continues to thrive through a musician-community exchange that takes into cognisance the sensibilities of the people while retaining their patronage and her artistic autonomy. Beyond its sonic, textual, and entertainment prerogatives, the sustained practice of senwele music in Ilorin presents a continuum for interrogating and negotiating cross-cultural encounters, socio-religious binaries, gender boundaries, and the multiplicity in the socio-musical experiences of Muslim women.
Contemporary Islamic music in southwestern Nigeria has changed in the last decade and Yoruba Muslim listeners are experiencing music in new ways. This article explores various trends in contemporary Yoruba Islamic music in southwestern Nigeria. The Yoruba are predominantly in southwestern Nigeria and extend to parts of central Nigeria and the West African coast of the Republic of Benin. The article draws on purposefully selected, recorded compositions of Yoruba Islamic artists produced on compact discs between 1979 and 2020, YouTube Videos and in-depth interviews to yield a comprehensive view of the music. It employs Vejlgaard’s (2018) trendspotting theory as a theoretical framework to analyse the texts. It examines the tendencies that shape the re-articulation of religion through the “Muslim sound” and problematises an understanding of the direction of change in contemporary Islamic music. The article argues that contemporary Islamic music in southwestern Nigeria is a product of the quest for Islamic identity and the commodification of musical and social values. This argument puts in context the many dynamics behind the transformations in contemporary Islamic music in Nigeria. Muslim singers draw on the strength of Nigeria’s thriving urban culture industry by adopting production, circulation, and marketing strategies that sustain the commercially successful Nigerian entertainment industry. This development is part of a global reality of social change and modernity transforming Islamic consciousness.
Igbo choral art music is a Nigerian genre that exhibits interesting musical hybridity as it combines a notated choral part with an un-notated orchestral part into a final musical artwork. The notated choral part is produced by the composer through a synthesis of Igbo traditional music and European classical music, while the orchestral part, based on Igbo traditional music practices, is produced by the choral director. For over five decades scholarly discussions on Igbo choral art music have focused on the notated choral part and how composers blend European classical music and Igbo traditional music principles. Although the choral part is significant, my more than two decades of participation in the genre as well as interviews with leading practitioners reveal that without the orchestral part, a composition is considered incomplete by both the practitioners and the audience. Such a critical aspect of the genre has received little to no academic attention. This article is an autoethnographic report on the orchestration principles of Igbo choral art music, its relationship with Igbo traditional music, and how such orchestration contributes to hybridity as a fundamental resource in the genre’s development.
APPROACHES AND METHODS EMPLOYED IN REVITALISING THE SEPEREWA MUSICAL TRADITION IN GHANA
This article examines how Osei Korankye, a seperewa (a west African harp) player in Ghana, managed to thrive in an often unfavourable environment for traditional musicians. The seperewa is a Ghanaian harp with a likeness to the kora. The article examines Korankye’s efforts to preserve and restore local interest in seperewa music. The conflict between traditional musical practices and the multiplicity of sounds and ideologies brought by globalisation and cultural imperialism after contact with Europe in the fifteenth century is critical to the discourse in this article. As a result of these encounters, Ghanaian communities have lost much of their musical traditions; those remaining are cherished by a small number of individuals. Many see such traditions as a building block to most of Ghana’s cultural heritage, hence the call for cultural revitalisation in many quarters. Drawing on the available literature and ethnographic interviews, I position Korankye, and his methods, as a powerful example of such a strategy for revitalisation while outlining many of the struggles he negotiated. This article corroborates existing arguments made by many that globalisation and cultural imperialism profoundly influenced African civilisations, threatening a loss of contact between communities and their customs.
In this article, I apply a gendered analysis to a healing phenomenon understood through indigenous musical performances in a ritual context. Ghanaian indigenous music has been widely researched and documented, however, a contextual analysis of the gendered musical roles associated with the healing rituals of the Twelve Apostles Church (TAC) is scant. In this research, the data was obtained from six congregations of the TAC, between 2014 to 2019. Based on participation, observations and interviews, the analysis is a description of how music is gendered in the indigenous healing rituals of the TAC. The main question I seek to answer is: how is gender constructed and how are the gender roles ascribed to musical performances in the healing rituals of the TAC? In answering this question, I discuss the cultural interpretations ascribed to gender in a musically informed healing ritual. The findings revealed that in the TAC, singing is mostly initiated by females who sing about illnesses. Males, on the other hand, are mostly in charge of playing the dondo, an hourglass drum. However, the mfoba, an enmeshed rattle is played by both males and females and it is the mfoba that aids spirit possession. Spirit possession is an integral part of the healing rituals of the TAC and females are more susceptible to being possessed by spirits than males. Based on various rules I argue that the healing ritual of the TAC is based on complementary rather than opposing musical roles of males and females.
Copyright (c) 2022 INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC, Rhodes University https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
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.
Tuning the Kingdom: Kawuugulu Musical Performance, Politics, and Story Telling in Buganda
Lagos Soundscapes. Emeka Ogboh, 2019. Berlin, Germany: Kerber. 164 colour and 85 b/w illustrations, bibliography, index, list of works, 216 pp.
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.
African Music, Power, and Being in Colonial Zimbabwe
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.
Hip Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers. Msia Kibona Clark, 2018. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 25 illustrations b&w, bibliography, index, 266 pp.
Hip Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers
This 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.