Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0258 - African Popular Music

This course focuses on African popular music. It examines musical genres from different parts of the continent, investigating their relationships to the historical, political, and social dynamics of their respective national and regional origins. Musical idioms like highlife, soukous, kwaito, afrobeat, hiplife, and afrobeats will be studied to assess the significance of popular music as a creative response to social and political developments in colonial and postcolonial Africa. The course also discusses the growth of hip-hop music in selected countries by exploring how indigenous cultural tropes have provided the basis for its local adaptation. The themes explored in the class also include music and identity, music, politics, and resistance; appropriation, cosmopolitanism, neo-traditional forms, and the politics of musical nostalgia.

Students in this course can expect to spend 6 to 8 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time.