Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Africana Periodical Literature Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Roots in Reverse: 'Cubanismo' in Twentieth-Century Senegalese Music
Author:Shain, Richard M.ISNI
Year:2002
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:35
Issue:1
Pages:83-101
Language:English
Geographic terms:Senegal
Cuba
Subjects:music
popular music
History and Exploration
Architecture and the Arts
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Equality and Liberation
Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3097367
Abstract:In the historical consideration of modernity in 20th-century Senegal, the expansion of Islam and the formulation of negritude loom large. This essay remaps the 'terrains of contestation' of Senegalese modernity by looking beyond the realms of religion and literature. Crucial contributions to fashioning conceptions of modernity and cosmopolitanism also came from Senegalese musicians and their audiences. Drawing on Cuban cultural materials, they largely bypassed Europe. Their contributions demonstrate that in Africa modernity often came as much from 'below' as from 'above' and that Europe or North America did not provide the only reference points. Although the Senegalese tend to call all Afro-Cuban music 'rumbas', historically it has been the Cuban 'son montuno' that has transformed African music to the exclusion of nearly every other Cuban musical form. Two types of Afro-Cuban 'son' ensembles have particularly influenced Senegalese musicians: the brassy big bands of the 1930s, and the flute and fiddle 'charanga' groups of the 1950s and 1960s. The essay traces the routes of transmission of Cuban music to Senegal, the reasons why this type of music in particular became so important, and changing performance styles since the 1930s. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
Views
Cover