Front cover image for Music is the weapon of the future : fifty years of African popular music

Music is the weapon of the future : fifty years of African popular music

Tells the story of African popular music, or Afropop, and its relationship to Africa's social and political milieu over the past 50 years, by presenting in-depth portraits of thirty important African musicians
Print Book, English, ©2002
1st English language ed View all formats and editions
Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago, Ill., ©2002
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xiv, 305 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
9781556524509, 1556524501
48920137
The sweet smells of independence
And Lumumba was dancing the cha-cha-cha : Joseph Kabasele and the rise of the Congolese crucible
E.T. Mensah : the king of highlife : the influence of colonization on music
Miriam Makeba : the "click-click girl" : South African music between silence and exile
Bembeya jazz and the syliphone elephant : the era of national pride in Guinea
Francis Bebey, Pierre Akendengue : the metropolitans : the children of Negritude
Rakoto Frah : the wizard Merlin of the Sodina : the Malagasy musical entity
The salt of the earth
Thomas Mapfumo and the ancestors' mbira in Zimbabwe : national liberation music in Southern Africa
Franco : "You go in ok, you come out ko" : the second wave of the Congolese sound
Fela Kuti : "The man who carried death in his pouch" : the quest for the Nigerian Afrobeat
Mahlathini, "King of the groaners," and Johnny Clegg, "The white Zulu" : the Soweto stewpot on the hot coals of apartheid
Roots
Granmoun Lélé and Danyel Waro : the pulse of Réunionese Maloya : the memory of the Maroons and the return of identity
Doudou N'Diaye Rose : the Messiaen of the Dakar Medina : Africa and the return to rhythm
The "strange Niger blue" of Mali's Ali Farka Toure : the roots of the blues
Bi Kidude : "The little thing," soul of the Zanzibar Taarab : East Africa between Bantu and Arab colors
Crisis of the signs
Toure Kunda and the "dance of the leaves" : African immigration and the vogue for black music
Salif Keita : the treason of the albino : the contradictions of the modern Griot
M'Pongo love : the feminist who "tickles" men : African diversity's unspoken matter
Zao : "Mr. Corpse" : the spices of humorous music
Alpha Blondy : "I am a Rastafoulosophe, you know!" : the rooting of reggae in Africa
Mamadou Konte's little hat : the activists of black showbiz
The Eskista of Mahmoud Ahmed : the case of ethio-jazz
World sound
Mory Kante : the electric Griot : the mutations of the instrument. Papa Wemba : the elegant rumba : the third Congolese wave
Geoffrey Oryema, of the sorrow of the Great Lakes : what music after Rwanda?
From Kodé di Dona to Cesaria Evora : sodad in A major : the music of Cape Verde
Anne-Marie Nzie : "The golden voice of Cameroon" : when "country" music is invited into world music
Leaving the twentieth century
Manu "Papa groove" Dibango : the pastor and his flock : from Sidney Bechet to techno
Abidjan-Dakar-Johannesburg : what's all this gnama-gnama? : rap, zouglou, kwaito : the new generation
The Youssou N'Dour connection : the prototype of the African artist of the future?
Ray Lema, or the great world band : when music is humanism
Afterword : The duty of memory
Appendixes. Music areas : Africa in ethnomusicolor ; Musical genres and styles ; Glossary of instruments
Translation of: Le swing du caméléon
Originally published: France : Actes Sud : Le swing du caméléon : musiques et chansons africaines, 1950-2000, ©2000
Translated from the French