Music Is the Weapon of the Future: Fifty Years of African Popular Music

by Frank Tenaille, Akwa Betote (Photographer), Betote

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556524509
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/28/2002
Edition description:	1ST ENG.
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Frank Tenaille is a journalist specializing in world music and has written for a number of publications and radio programs. His 11 books include biographies of Patrice Lumumba and Touré Kunda and guides to French song and world music.

Table of Contents

	Map of Africa	x
	Introduction	xiii
	The Sweet Smells of Independence
	... And Lumumba Was Dancing the Cha-Cha-Cha: Joseph Kabasele and the Rise of the Congolese Crucible	3
	E. T. Mensah: The King of Highlife: The Influence of Colonization on Music	11
	Miriam Makeba: The "Click-Click Girl": South African Music Between Silence and Exile	19
	Bembeya Jazz and the Syliphone Elephant: The Era of National Pride in Guinea	27
	Francis Bebey, Pierre Akendengue: The Metropolitans: The Children of Negritude	35
	Rakoto Frah: The Wizard Merlin of the Sodina: The Malagasy Musical Entity	43
	The Salt of the Earth
	Thomas Mapfumo and the Ancestors' Mbira in Zimbabwe: National Liberation Music in Southern Africa	51
	Franco: "You Go in OK, You Come Out KO": The Second Wave of the Congolese Sound	59
	Fela Kuti: "The Man Who Carried Death in His Pouch": The Quest for the Nigerian Afrobeat	67
	Mahlathini, "King of the Groaners," and Johnny Clegg, "The White Zulu": The Soweto Stewpot on the Hot Coals of Apartheid	77
	Roots
	Granmoun Lele and Danyel Waro: The Pulse of Reunionese Maloya: The Memory of the Maroons and the Return of Identity	87
	Doudou N'Diaye Rose: The Messiaen of the Dakar Medina: Africa and the Return to Rhythm	93
	The "Strange Niger Blue" of Mali's Ali Farka Toure: The Roots of the Blues	99
	Bi Kidude: "The Little Thing," Soul of the Zanzibar Taarab: East Africa Between Bantu and Arab Colors	105
	Crisis of the Signs
	Toure Kunda and the "Dance of the Leaves": African Immigration and the Vogue for Black Music	113
	Salif Keita: The Treason of the Albino: The Contradictions of the Modern Griot	121
	M'Pongo Love: The Feminist Who "Tickles" Men: African Diversity's Unspoken Matter	131
	Zao: "Mr. Corpse": The Spices of Humorous Music	139
	Alpha Blondy: "i Am a Rastafoulosophe, You Know!": The Rooting of Reggae in Africa	147
	Mamadou Konte's Little Hat: The Activists of Black Showbiz	157
	The Eskista of Mahmoud Ahmed: The Case of Ethio-Jazz	163
	World Sound
	Mory Kante: The Electric Griot: The Mutations of the Instrument	173
	Papa Wemba: The Elegant Rumba: The Third Congolese Wave	179
	Geoffrey Oryema, or the Sorrow of the Great Lakes: What Music After Rwanda?	185
	From Kode di Dona to Cesaria Evora: Sodade in A Major: The Music of Cape Verde	191
	Anne-Marie Nzie: "The Golden Voice of Cameroon": When "Country" Music Is Invited into World Music	199
	Leaving the Twentieth Century
	Manu "Papa Groove" Dibango: The Pastor and His Flock: From Sidney Bechet to Techno	209
	Abidjan--Dakar--Johannesburg: What's All This Gnama-Gnama?: Rap, Zouglou, Kwaito: The New Generation	217
	The Youssou N'Dour Connection: The Prototype of the African Artist of the Future?	227
	Ray Lema, or the Great World Band: When Music Is Humanism	235
	Afterword: The Duty of Memory	241
	Appendixes
	Musical Areas: Africa in Ethnomusicolor	249
	Musical Genres and Styles	259
	Glossary of Instruments	267
	Selected Discography	277
	Selected Bibliography	289
	Acknowledgments	295
	Index	297

What People are Saying About This

Nils Jacobsen

An incredibly valuable resource.
— All About Jazz

Banning Eyre

Highly-readable and informative.
— Afropop Worldwide

Editorial Reviews

Out of the ether arrives this long-overdue, cogent, well-crafted, knowledgeable, and well-structured survey of Afropop and, as a generous and valuable bonus, a survey of the genre's organic relationship to Africa's social and political milieu over the past 50 years. Unlike Western rock, folk, and rap artists, African acts like Salif Keita have had, often at the very cost of their lives and those of their families, a political impact comparable to that of Martin Luther King. Here, Tenaille, a French journalist specializing in world music, profiles in detail 30 significant African musicians, some as familiar as Miriam Makeba and Yousseau N'Dour, others as relatively unknown as Mory Kante and Zao, but all crucially important in defining and defending African music as inherently important, joyous, and free of colonial control. The only shortcomings are the lack of an audio CD of representative artists and photographs of African instruments (e.g., the balafon, the njarka), which would have enhanced our comprehension of the profiles. Ronnie Graham's The World of African Music and World Music: The Rough Guide offer valuable discographical information, but this is the first and only work to treat the relationship between politics and Afropop. Indispensable for all academic and large public libraries. Bill Piekarski, Angelicus Webdesign, Lackawanna, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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