Critical Sonic Practice: Decolonizing Boundaries in Music Research
African-American music is one of the greatest art forms of the past century but research on this music’s composition is underrepresented in scholarship and education. In the Americas, during the era of slavery, African language and culture groups were separated to avoid Africans retaliating; music,...
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
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University of Canterbury
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10092/103099 https://doi.org/10.26021/12233 |
| Summary: | African-American music is one of the greatest art forms of the past century but research on this music’s composition is underrepresented in scholarship and education. In the Americas, during the era of slavery, African language and culture groups were separated to avoid Africans retaliating; music, however, was more easily subverted and at times, religiously converted, away from the ears of the oppressor. African music, with its complex polyrhythms, improvisation, vocal harmonies and unique timbres was parsed as noise to European invaders and this lack of understanding persists. This lack of representation and self-representation is reflected in indigenous and local music research across the colonial and neocolonial world. For example, in the United States of America, the education system often omits indigenous musicians, such as Native American and First Nations musicians, as well as influential global styles such as African-American trap and drill, or Latinx musics, such as reggaeton. As composer-theorist, my auto-ethnographic research centers on music producers in Accra, their process, influences, mentorship and sites of listening that have repercussions on the study of similar black electronic musics |
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