Special Topics in Africana Studies

AFRS3000- African Popular Music on the Global State

Tuesdays/Thursdays 11:30 -12:45

Course description:

This course is designed to introduce students without previous musical knowledge to
various popular musics of the African world. African music and musicians have
influenced a disproportionate number of cultural practices the world over, and perhaps no
place exists on a greater scale in the global imagination than sub-Saharan Africa. By
exploring various musical case studies, this course will investigate the globalization of
African music in the late 20th century, and such concepts as the politics and aesthetics of
“worldbeat” and its relationship to the transnational recording industry and the world’s
media, and the notion of cultural imperialism and how it reflects the global imbalance of
power. We will also look at the current theories of World Music 2.0, such as Sublime
Frequencies, and how African hip hop has become the musical lingua franca of a
continent.