In 2008, a new style in Jamaican dancehall music and dance culture known as "Daggering" emerged. Daggering music and dancing, which included lyrics that graphically referred to sexual activities and a dance which has been described as "dry sex" on the dance floor, took Jamaica by storm. The Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica was forced to crack down on broadcasting and cable stations preventing them from playing any Daggering content. This article focuses on the subsequent clash between the government and the dancehall, and seeks to identify an appropriate method for monitoring and enforcing these new standards.
Commenting on the sanctity of the family, the president delivers a clear message in the song, "Pap Divoce," for which his cabinet has already delivered an entertaining video. [Mickey] has taken note of the disposition of the nation's young in regard to Haiti's current state and delivered a very club friendly response in the melodious "Non, non, non". Presidential advisor Wyclef Jean makes a bullet-riddled entrance in "Men nou" that should have dedicated supporters either rushing for shelter or the nearest ballot box. Djazz La Vol. 5 is probably the very best effort this talented drummer/producer has ever released.
Attempts to understand what the presence of Black music means in the absence of Black people. Is this an expression of a global circulation of Afro-Caribbean cultural trends as symbols of belonging and difference among urban youngsters? Does it take us back to the history of Quintana Roo as a Caribbean region and the Black Atlantic? Is it a form of revision of Mexican national ethnic mixture and inclusion of other population groups? Adapted from the source document.
169 p., Examines entanglements of race, place, gender, and class in Puerto Rican reggaetón. Based on ethnographic and archival research in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and in New York, New York, I argue that Puerto Rican youth engage with an African diasporic space via their participation in the popular music reggaetón. By African diasporic space, the author refers to the process by which local groups incorporate diasporic resources such as cultural practices or icons from other sites in the African diaspora into new expressions of blackness that respond to their localized experiences of racial exclusion. Participation in African diasporic space not only facilitates cultural exchange across different African diasporic sites, but it also exposes local communities in these sites to new understandings and expressions of blackness from other places. As one manifestation of these processes in Puerto Rico, reggaetón refutes the hegemonic construction of Puerto Rican national identity as a "racial democracy."
193 p., Kwame Dawes coined the term "reggae aesthetic" to explain the paradigm shift in 1960s-70s Caribbean literature that also dovetailed the rise of reggae music in Jamaica. By exploring the impact of popular music on the social developments in late 1960s and early 1970s Jamaica, Dawes offered a new method of Caribbean literary analysis reminiscent of the extant blues tradition in African American literature--similar to the way that reggae music borrows from the blues--and in so doing, highlighted the artistic and cultural influences that link people of color across the "Black Atlantic." This dissertation builds on Dawes's theory by exploring the history and function of music as an aesthetic form and narrative trope in literature of the Black Atlantic. Blues and reggae in contemporary fiction manifest the oral tradition in African storytelling.
African Consciences is a Parisian based initiative of artistes from the `Black Atlantic' and Africa. They use music to shape a discourse on their identity in relation to Africa, strongly bound to consciousness. The musical itinerary provided by reggae and hip hop constitutes what they see as a means for action to bring alive a "global African network". In this chapter I will reconsider the practice of repatriation, and the meanings it conveys now. I will try to analyse it through African Consciences' "Door of no Return" where they intend to travel back the road of the trans Atlantic trade in Africans. African Consciences has a mediated relation to Africa through roads that join their musical practice to their understanding of African history and tradition. It also carries an ideological intent to bring forth a global Africa through the articulation of routes and roots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR].
Reads Carnival-related performances in relationship to the colonial and national histories of the circulation of Indian and black women's bodies in Trinidad and Tobago, asking what is at stake in these occupations of genre, form, and performative presence in the latest global scenes of late capitalism (where image and sound, as cultural productions, are always in circulation beyond the scope of the nation, and their own "original" referents).
Addresses the socially controversial issue of the public expression of sexuality in dance in the Caribbean. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of 'wining' or 'wukkin' up', dancing involving pelvic gyrations. The focus is on changes taking place in societies in which there is supposedly the continued dominance of a male patriarchal figure. Can these changes be anything more than a new form of male control of female sexuality and public sexual expression?
The concert was held in order to raise funds for Howard 'Goddy Goddy' Reynolds' surgery to remove a painful tumour behind his ears. The 'night to remember' began with five-year-old Oshine Levy, the daughter of 2004 Gospel Song winner Lubert Levy. Oshine gave a splendid rendition of My Redeemer Lives. Her pint-sized body belied her voice control. She lifted the place to a spiritual high which found hundreds of mostly young attendees dancing, waving flags and singing along. The command of her performance was highlighted by MC Garfield, who reminded the audience that 'a child shall lead them'.
AFRICANDO Arts and Culture Festival, a collaboration between the Foundation for Democracy in Africa and Miami-Dade County, is a one-day event that will feature contemporary African, Afro-American, Caribbean & Afro-Latino cultures. MDCC and the Black Heritage Museum will display masks, statues and murals from the Caribbean, South America, Brazil and Cuba. A special "Children's Activities Village" will feature traditional African and Caribbean folk tales, puppet shows, African mask and instrument making, African textile weaving, Miami Metrozoo's exotic animal show and more. The festival, which is the closing event for AFRICANDO 2001, will be promoted in Africa, AFRICANDO organizers say. A trade delegation from Miami and Washington, D.C., will conduct trade seminars promoting the conference and festival in Nigeria, Mali, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
CD, Album, Snowboy has crafted his own distinct rhythmic identity using a mixture of three rhythms that make a kind of big groove sound on four congas. It comes from a style of bata [sacred Afro-Cuban] drumming called chachalokafun, rumba, and mozambique.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
614 p, Cuba has been central to popular music developments throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, the United States and Europe. Unfortunately, no one has ever attempted to survey the extensive literature on the island's music, in particular the vernacular contributions of its Afro-Cuban population. This unprecedented bibliographic guide attempts to do just that. Ranging from the 19th century to early 2009 it offers almost 5000 entries on all of the islandâ¿¿s main genre families, e.g. Cancion Cubana, Danzon, Son, Rumba, and Sacred Musics (Santeria, Palo, Abakua, and Arara), as well as such recent developments as timba, rap and regueton.
Eastern Caribbean nationals will feel at home, as their region's music seems to dominate the lineup. Brother Marvin, Singing Sandra and Crazy are all from T&T. Each offering a different style of delivery, they represent calypso's many flavors. To add to that element, ADLIB Steel Orchestra will add instrumentation to the islands' unique genre. Winners of last year's steel band and calypso competitions at the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association's Labor Day gala on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, the 30-member, 11-year-old group promises youth from 7 years old to deliver the beat. St. Paul's J.O.B. Young Adult Choir represents New York in drama, song and dance. Traditional island-style Christmas carols are promised by Charles Dougherty and Circle of Friends Caribbean ensemble.
Another question is why Shaggy's "Hot Shot" was overlooked by voters. Released last summer, the album made it under the Sept. 30, 2000, deadline and fulfills the requirements with original material. The fact the album went virtually ignored for almost a half-year probably contributed to its absence on the list of finalists. Reportedly, the single "It Wasn't Me" gained life when a KIKI-FM deejay down-loaded the tract from the Internet and put it on the radio. The Honolulu station played the track, winning appeal from all of Hawaii. These months later, BET and MTV have spirited the video to return the Boombastic Lover Lover to the charts. The album is now No. 3 on Billboard Magazine's album chart, but nowhere on the Grammy list of five selections. Favored to place, show or win, The Baha Men of the Banamas were a sure bet. Their baseball-friendly "Who Let the Dogs Out" is awaiting verdict in the dance recording category.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
266 p, This study spans several linguistic areas of the Caribbean and parts of the Atlantic coast of the U.S., Mexico, and South America; it examines historical, national, popular, parading, sacred, and combat dances to reveal both meanings and consequences of performance. Beyond unfolding important physical and cultural significances of each genre, the analyses deepen to understand core motivations for African diaspora performance; the results are transcendence, resilience, and citizenship among dancing and music-making participants. The study repeatedly acknowledges Katherine Dunham, who began teaching the citizenship of Caribbean dance/music practices and reviews the literature since her original trilogy on Caribbean dance practices. Analyses also place local Caribbean dances as viable commodities within crucial Caribbean tourism and both cultural and economic globalization.
In 1984, the association opened an expanded Historical Museum at the Miami-Dade Cultural Center in downtown Miami. This 40,000-square-foot facility includes a permanent exhibition that traces the history of South Florida and the Caribbean, a temporary exhibition gallery that features several new exhibitions each year, a theater and classroom area for variety of educational programs, and storage areas for the museum's extensive collections of artifacts and archival materials, including books, manuscripts, maps and more than one million photographs related to the region. In recent year, the Historical Museum has directed increasing attention to Miami's role as a gateway of the Americas. To explore Miami's multifaceted connections with the Caribbean and Latin America, a new program series, Miami: The Gateway City, was introduced in Spring 1999. The objective of the 12-month series is to use the museum as a central forum for public dialogue about current issues facing Miami and as a space for related artistic presentations.
"But equally important, it was a celebration of the showbiz pioneers who met the standards of excellence that have enabled the Black community to lead the world of entertainment in Britain today." Songstress Beverley Knight, who became the envy of every woman in the land when she belted her heart out alongside sexy soulster Lynden David Hall, described the evening as "an history event." Roachford said: "I was honoured to be asked to perform."
Discussion of the books Caribbean currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae (1995), by Peter Manuel, with Kenneth Bilby and Michael Largey; Bachata: a social history of a Dominican popular music (1995), by Deborah Pacini Hernández; and Merengue: Dominican music and Dominican identity (1995), by Paul Austerlitz.
Euba,Akin (Editor) and Kimberlin,Cynthia Tse (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
Pt. Richmond, CA: MRI Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
202 p., Includes Tan Sooi Beng's "African music in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Asia meets Africa: cross-cultural communication through the Rainforest World Music Festival, Sarawak."
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
52 p., Gottschalk traveled extensively. A sojourn in Cuba during 1854 was the beginning of a series of trips to Central and South America. He also traveled to Puerto Rico after his Havana debut and at the start of his Caribbean period. Taken with the music he heard on the island, he composed a work entitled Souvenir de Porto Rico; Marche des gibaros, Op. 31 (RO250).
Special journal issue: New Perspectives on the Black Music Diaspora: Focus on the Caribbean., Includes Roger D. Abrahams, Questions of competency and performance in the black musical diaspora; Rose Mary Allen, Music in diasporic context: The case of Curaçao and intro-Caribbean migration; Nanette T. De Jong, Curaçao and the folding diaspora: Contesting the party tambú in the Netherlands; Elizabeth Mcalister, Listening for geographies: Music as sonic compass pointing toward African and Christian diasporic horizons in the Caribbean; and Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Dominican roots music: Liberation mythologies and overlapping diasporas.
"Dominican culture and society can be characterized as a hybrid whose nature is expressed in various domains. For example, folk or popular Catholicism, the religion of some 90 percent of the national population, is in summary a cultural amalgamation. But deconstructed, it can be seen to retain elements of the various contributors to its eclectic configuration: Spanish of different regions, classes, Catholic religious orders, and even religions with regard to Judaic and Islamic features retained in Spanish folk Catholicism; West and Central African of various ethnic origins; continuities of native Taíno beliefs and practices; and other origins, such as the possible East Indian origin of the vodú deity of the “black” Guedé family, Santa Marta la Dominadora." -The Author
The article discusses the importance of percussionists and drummers in Jamaican popular music, especially reggae, arguing that their contributions have often been under-estimated. It emphasizes the traditional African roots of characteristic Jamaican drumming styles. An overview of the history of Jamaican percussion and drumming is provided. Musicians discussed include Babu Bryan, known for his Kumina drumming, Watta King, a drummer in the Buru tradition, and Oswald "Count Ossie" Williams, who developed the Nyabinghi style of Rastafarian drumming.
204 p., This dissertation examines the roles played by jazz and blues in African American fiction of the post-World War II era. The author contends that scholars of jazz and blues fiction generally discuss the authors' treatment of the music in terms of how it shows up, is alluded to, or is played; however, few address performative elements that are central to much African American literature. Their performances, whether as narratives or geosocial movements, often draw upon forms of flight as defining actions that send them into new territories and necessitate acts of improvisation. Forms of flight manifest themselves as improvised solos in numerous ways, including in this dissertation the path of Ellison's narrator going north and ultimately underground in Invisible Man , brothers leaving their Harlem pasts and coming together while on ever-divergent paths in James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," Milkman Dead discovering the secret of literal flight by improvising through a journey to his familial past in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon , or the members of Macon Street's "flesh-and-blood triangle" choosing the expatriate route of Paris instead of America in Paule Marshall's The Fisher King.
[Carolyn Cooper] said there is a dissonance between "the brand" and the "representation of the brand" and that "until in Jamaica we come to acknowledge Jamaica is not an "out of many, one people" country but it is really a country of black people with small numbers of ethnic minorities, we're not going to get the brand right." 'At Independence, Emancipation Day just disappeared. Because if you have Emancipation Day, then you have to ask yourself what you were emancipated from. And then certain people would have to say, well, we were mixed up in it. Slavery, that is. So Emancipation Day was just erased,"she said. "But Garveyites and Rastafari kept the tradition of celebrating Emancipation Day. And it's now back on the national calendar. We even have an Emancipation Park!" "This book is a celebration of Brand Jamaica, the authentic Brand Jamaica and I hope that as you read it, you'll understand why I'm so passionate about the subject," said Cooper as she ended her remarks.
In the music's hundred year existence, the tradition's greatest innovators (Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman, just to name a few...) have been black. However, Jazz music has since evolved into an international and even a universal level, to the point where we now have: Latin Jazz/Brazilian Jazz/Cuban Jazz/Japanese Jazz etc...Basically, most cultures around the world found their niches in Jazz music. Over the years, Haiti has been home to many great jazz musicians, unfortunately with the dominance of Konpa Music, many Haitians have sort-of ignored this genre of music, and these musicians, but there are a small minority of Haitians in Haiti and abroad that are very fond of Jazz music and have shown serious support to the Haitians musicians who dedicated their lives and craft to playing Jazz music, despite the fact that it's not the dominant and popular art form in Haiti.
It ran for more than six years and playing one of [Desmond]'s barbershop cronies was a highlight of [Ram John Holder]'s long career. "It only had half of the audience of Desmond's, but it had much bigger audiences than the shows they replaced it with." In it, the colourful and exuberant traditions of Trinidad's Carnival provide the setting for a stage event which transforms Handel's Messiah into an musical combining song, dance and spectacle with the spirit of Caribbean storytelling.
Dominicans fete late, and even after three nights of nonstop music there must be upwards of 4,000 people waiting to hear the last band. As Haiti's most famous kompa group - Tabou Combo - takes the stage, exhaustion is dispelled by their relaxed "C'est Tambou", an invitation to a dancing-at-dawn session which continues long after the sun has climbed into the sky. The Haitians in the press box break into spontaneous dance, some straying on-stage; couples slip into each others' arms, moving in effortless elegance, and Dominica's minister of tourism, Norris Prevost, inquires whether this is not the best party I've ever seen. Haiti's Magnum Band with St. Lucian Luther Francois on sax blasted away the wee-hours fatigue with flowing funk and konpa over vodou rhythms and soaring lyrical soukous guitar. It was nearly 7:30 a.m. when Guadeloupe's Taxi Creole ended a tight, driving set which drew on zouk, salsa, merengue, beguine, reggae, jazz and funk.
160 p., An analytical study of Burundanga or Cantata Antillana by Jack Délano (1914-1997). One of Délano's most ambitious choral-orchestral compositions, Burundanga was completed in 1989 in response to a commission from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and is based on Luis Palés Matos's (1898-1959) extravagant and elaborate poem Canción festiva para ser llorada (A Festive Song to be Wept). Burundanga stands at the foreground of Puerto Rican art-music in the twentieth century. With its neoclassical language and integration of Caribbean folkloric material, it emerges as a unique reflection of the highly complex geographical, social, cultural and musical reality of Puerto Rico and the Antilles. Discerns particular methods by which the composer utilized and adapted Afro-Antillean idioms and combined them with art-music components to portray idiosyncratic aspects of Caribbean culture in a universalistic musical language.
Chicago, IL: Columbia College Chicago, Center for Black Music Research
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Many of the song texts are in creole or ritual languages., 214 sound discs (digital) + 2 v. of log sheets, Field recordings, primarily of music, made as part of Bilby's ethnographic and ethnomusicological fieldwork. Jamaica and French Guiana are particularly well represented, but the collection also includes recordings from Antigua, Bahamas, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Guadeloupe, St. Vincent, Suriname, Tobago, Trinidad, and the U. S. Virgin Islands, as well as Cuban music recorded in New York.
Friday, Oct. 29 was Kweyol Day, a celebration of island identity and culture. While the official language of the Commonwealth of Dominica is English, 80 percent of the population speak Kweyol, a legacy of early French settlement. Kweyol language and folk culture, after being sidelined, dismissed or denigrated during the British colonial period, has played an important role in forging the identity of independent Dominica since 1978. People's irritation with a late start was quickly dissolved. After the Stars, the Vodou rhythms of Haiti's seminal roots music band Boukman Eksperyans reverberated through Festival City. Named after the Vodou priest who presided over the ceremony that ignited Haiti's slave rebellion, Boukman Eksperyans has been at the forefront of taking the Vodou beat into the arena of world music. Tabou Combo, the most famous and long-lived Haitian Konpa band, seemed reluctant to leave the stage, but from 5 a.m., Festival City was overrun by WCK, [Dominica]'s marathon bouyon band, with whom I was still chipping at breakfast time. Not even a large pot of extra-strong Dominican coffee could revive me, and I retired battered and rambling in Kweyol, to recover in Trinidad.
Chabela Ramírez, the black singer and activist born in Montevideo in 1958, is a singular personality of candombe, the only multi-form Afro-Uruguayan musical genre. Retracing her trajectory leads us through the history of Uruguay's black community (10% of the total population) and candombe, with particular attention on how this musical expression went from devalued practice to national heritage in a country deeply marked by a Eurocentric ideology. Ramírez founded and gave voice, with Afrogama, the choir and dance group that she leads, to a unique aesthetic thought that brought meaning to candombe via the field of Afro-religions (Umbanda and Batuque).
Allsopp,Jeannette (Editor) and Rickford,John R. (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
2012
Published:
Kingston, Jamaica: Canoe Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
178 p., A publication to commemorate the life and work of the late Richard Allsopp, Caribbean linguist extraordinaire, pioneering lexicographer and cultural researcher. Explores various aspects of language, culture and identity in the region, focusing on themes that engaged Allsopp in his lifetime: Creole linguistics, Caribbean lexicography, language in folklore and religion, literature, music and dance, and language issues in Caribbean schools.
The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, a group of Nyabinghi ceremonial drummers founded by the legendary Count Ossie in the 1950s, is not only making its New York debut but is raising the curtain on the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' "Caribbean Roots: Caribbean Routes" festival. Chris Combette, who has been collaborating with Mungal Patasar on several tracks for his new album, opened the show with his beautiful fusion of Caribbean styles - samba, salsa, soca, bossa nova, reggae and zouk sweeping over the auditorium like warm waves. Based in French Guiana, bordering Brazil, Combette has soaked up the melodies of the region, while his lyrics address the nostalgia or alienation of the immigrant, and racist murder in the metropole. Beneath his sinuous, sometimes ethereal music lurked incisive Kwéyol irony and melancholy metaphors. It was left to Kali and his banjo to bring down the curtain on the festival with his brilliant reworking of Martiniquan traditional music, mazurk, biguine, chouval bwa, gwo ka (from Guadeloupe) with reggae, funk and jazz. It was good to hear St. Lucian Luther François, one of the Caribbean's foremost contemporary composers and sax players, adding punch to this excellent band and the finale of a significant festival for Caribbean music.
"[Daniel Beauxhomme] comes from the lighter skin mixed class," said Kevin Johnson, who plays Daniel. "It's the story of two different people from two different worlds falling in love. Fate brings them together and fate takes them apart. It's similar to `Romeo and Juliet.'" "In Haiti, it's very confusing. It's fuzzier than here (the United States). A lot of it has more to do with money and name than this," said Shirley Julien, who is Haitian. "And that's what the musical focuses on. Ti Moune means `little orphan' in the play. But, in Haiti it means `little person.' That drives the theme more because she doesn't have a real name. In Haiti every little kid is called ti moune." "I don't think that there is that much of a difference," said Julien, who is also the musical's choreographer. "It's just highlighted more. The division is put on us and we accept it. It's up to us to say `I don't believe this' and take time to learn about Haitians, Jamaicans and Trinidadians. Our commonalities are so much stronger and deep inside of us."
Develops a theoretical framework of biopolitical performance with which to approach the 1957 televised broadcast of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's A Drum Is a Woman. Presented on the drama anthology program The United States Steel Hour, this theater-music-dance suite fused elements of Afro-Caribbean rhythm with swing and bebop to tell a history of jazz, featuring acclaimed performers such as Carmen de Lavallade, Margaret Tynes, Joya Sherrill, and Talley Beatty. Argues that through their experimentation Ellington and Strayhorn created a hybrid performance in the mode of "calypso theater": a formal and thematic engagement with an Afro-Caribbean performance history.
Mocko Jumbie, as it is called in the Caribbean, has been a part of the Virgin Islands culture for more than 200 years. The phrase "Mocko Jumbie" may have different meanings according to the different tribes that practices the art. "Mocko" could mean "Mock" or it could mean "Good God."
282 p., Contributes to assessing the effects of neoliberal reforms, and to identifying alternative strategies for better living through globalization, by exploring aspects of the creative destruction wrought upon the population of Jamaica, where government and multinational agencies have pursued a consistent and decades-long policy trajectory following the logic of liberation through market expansion. Focusing on conceptions of ethical behavior as expressed by residents of one central-island farmtown, the dissertation charts a corresponding pattern in locally prevalent guidelines for reconciling individual and collective interests through the practice of freedom.
There's tendency among some reggae fans to tune out most of today's dancehall deejays, dismissing them as untalented shysters. While that's an essentially justifiable reaction, there are deejays - mostly of the conscious variety - who are worthy of our attention. One in particular is Prezident Brown. Tune out his new release - To Jah Only - and you'll deprive yourself of a relevant body of work that's likely to sway and have you listening for more of this style. To Jah Only is a neat package that adroitly intertwines the traditional with the contemporary. The title track, which leads the album, gently combines slow guitar picks with Nyabinghi drumming, amid Brown's assiduous delivery of some trusty Rasta melodies. The familiar Duppy Conqueror rhythm by Bob Marley is acquired on In This Life, and it's superimposed with a message that counsels mankind about his covetous ways. This theme is also continued with Pomps and Pride. One of the livelier tracks is Micro Chip, and Brown does a nice job keeping pace with a very demanding tempo. But the strongest is undoubtedly Faith - an instant classic that unveils Brown's versatility and true talent. His encyclopedic expressionism sets him apart from the ordinary, and he's truly one of our best links between the past and the present. [Dean Fraser]'s latest album - Retrospect - is a delightfully appetizing reminiscence of classic hits that are masterfully reproduced for everyone's listening pleasure. With 12 tracks, this album takes you back to mento, through ska, roots, and up to the present.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
425 p., An anthology focusing on the musical cultures of the "northern sphere" of Latin America, specifically Mexico, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, and parts of Central America.
113 p., Jamaican folk songs have become a definitive characteristic of Jamaican culture. They are exemplars of a culture whose music reflects the lifestyle of most of its citizens. In modern times, their beauty has been show cased in local and foreign performances which exposes an element of the country to the world. Additionally, the arrangements of songs by Jamaican composers like Noel Dexter and Peter Ashbourne have aided in their renaissance in modern times. This research analyzes the arrangements by Noel Dexter and Peter Ashbourne. It explores the transition of Jamaican folk songs from the slave fields to the art music stage.
Prophet and loss: A [Bob Marley] documentary forms the centrepiece of a Channel 4 special series on the Caribbean The music continues on August 7 with Top Ten: Caribbean, a celebration of Latino, reggae, ragga, hip-hop and everything in between with the 10 most successful Caribbean chart acts in pop history. Representing the lighter side of Caribbean life is rising star Richard Blackwood in a one-off Caribbean special of his entertainment series, The Richard Blackwood Show.
237 p., Free people of color held an ambiguous place in Caribbean slave societies. On the one hand they were nominally free, but the reality of their daily lives was often something less than free. This work examines how free people of color, or libres de color , in nineteenth-century Cuba attempted to carve out lives for themselves in the face of social, economic, and political constraints imposed on them by white Cubans and Spaniards living in the island. It focuses on how through different Afro-Cuban associations some libres de color used public music and dance performances to self-fashion identities on their own terms.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
284 p., An anthropological study of music as social activism and postcolonial identity development. The research for this dissertation was conducted in Trinidad and Tobago during an extended period of fieldwork from August 2003-February 2005, and during subsequent research trips from 2005 through 2008. This dissertation is a social history of the evolution of rapso, a genre of music that is heavily oriented toward poetic lyrics that advocate for social justice and the upliftment of the oppressed in Trinidad and Tobago. Grounded in oral and archival history and performance analysis, this study addresses the complex interconnections between the political economy of cultural production in Trinidad and Tobago, the politics of racial, gender, and national identity, and the individual quest for self-affirmation and meaning in life through the pursuit of artistic and activist work.
Rise Up channels the spirit of the elders with cameos by Fred Locks, Sly Dunbar. Robbie Shakespeare, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Toots Hibberts and Brushy One String among others. Industry stalwarts like producers Mikey Bennett and Carlo Less are among those narrating the story which highlights the unique musical quality of Jamaicans.
85 p., This thesis is an attempt to explore the role that musical texts and physical spaces played in the development of a Rastafari public in post-colonial Jamaica. By examining theories of public formation outlined in Jürgen Habermas' The Structural Transformation The study positions the Rasta text (through Nyahbinghi ceremonies and the act of 'reasoning') as a self-authenticating, oppositional discourse which functions as a critique of normative constructions of reason. By tracing the musical text through Pinnacle, grounation ceremonies in Trenchtown yards, Soundsystems and Dancehalls, and recording studios, an understanding of the ways in which the Rasta text occupies both self-authenticating and oppositional positions simultaneously can be achieved.
The issue at hand was brought to our attention by Brazilian activist Ivanir dos Santos - the executive secretary of an organization called CEAP (Center for the Articulation of Outcast Populations) who came to our attention recently to protest a song released by Sony Music/Brazil artist Tiririca called "Look at Her Hair." "It was something for the children ... a carnival song, kind of a joke," a spokesperson for Sony Music/Brazil, Michele Rumchinsky, said of the record. The average White man or woman in Brazil, a nation of 80 million people of African descent that has the world's second-largest population of people of African descent outside of Nigeria - makes three times what the average Afro-Brazilian earns, although Afro-Brazilians make up 44 percent of the nation's population.
277 p., Afro-Cuban (Santería ) drummers are trained ritual specialists in minority religious communities, initiated through secret rites into homosocial community groups. Historically, women and non-heteronormative men have been excluded from playing consecrated batá drums. This dissertation investigates how drummers construct the sensual and physical essence of musical sound around gender and sexual hierarchies in Afro-Cuban diasporic contexts (Havana, Miami, New York, and New Jersey). Drummers possess a theory of power based on concepts of how the feeling of aché (from Yoruban language, "the power to make things happen") is channeled during performance. Considers colonial-period Afro-Cuban social societies (cabildos ) as a source of possible residual patriarchal authority in the current male drumming cult community.
The Fugees -- Wyclef, Lauryn, and Pras -- returned to the group's Haitian motherland to present a massive concert at the Bicentenaire in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, April 12. An estimated 80,000 Fugees fans gathered to celebrate the group's "homecoming" and the music and art of Haiti in an atmosphere of good vibes and peaceful revelry. The 8-hour concert included sets by local and international musical artists -- hand-picked by Wyclef -- as well as a monumental nearly 4-hour performance by the Fugees.
Schwartz,Peggy, (Author) and Schwartz,Murray, (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
New Haven: Yale University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
324 p, Pearl Primus (1919–1994) blazed onto the dance scene in 1943 with stunning works that incorporated social and racial protest into their aesthetic. This book offers an intimate perspective on her life and explores her influences on American culture, dance, and education. It traces Primus's path from her childhood in Port of Spain, Trinidad, through her rise as an influential international dancer, an early member of the New Dance Group (whose motto was 'Dance is a weapon'), and a pioneer in dance anthropology. Primus traveled extensively in the U.S., Europe, Israel, the Caribbean, and Africa, and she played an important role in presenting authentic African dance to American audiences. She engendered controversy in both her private and professional lives, marrying a white Jewish man during a time of segregation and challenging black intellectuals who opposed the 'primitive' in her choreography. Her political protests and mixed-race tours in the South triggered an FBI investigation, even as she was celebrated by dance critics and by contemporaries like Langston Hughes.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
772 p., George Gershwin introduced Afro Cuban Music in America in 1926. Xavier Cugat during the 1930's introduced The Rumba dance. Three great innovations based on Cuban music hit the USA after World War II: the first was Cubop, the latest Latin jazz fusion. The rumbustious conguero Chano Pozo was also important, for he introduced jazz musicians to basic Cuban rhythms. Cuban jazz has continued to be a significant influence. The mambo first entered the United States around 1950, though ideas had been developing in Cuba and Mexico City for some time.
By reflecting on the intersections of race, nationality, and the body within the specificities of Black Seminole border culture and history, the essay problematizes Anne Anlin Cheng’s notion of racial melancholia, suggesting that self rejection might be a more strategic move than Cheng acknowledges it to be. In the end, the author coins the term dialectical soundings and proposes that the singing of spirituals among the Black Seminoles in fact operates as such, rendering blackness visible in the context of the Mexican border essentialist racial discourse.
"Lakou Trankil" is the work of an artist quietly reflecting on the personal, the political, the light and heavy sides of Haitian life. The album's lead song, "Lakou", blends a soulfully acoustic reggae with thoughtful metaphors that borrow from the wisdom of Haiti's country folk. Belo's strong baritone seems fashioned after Bob Marley's own and this distinct quality is definitely heard when he wails "dread natty dread..." in that song's plaintive chorus. The R&B-styled "Tenza", a song about love gone bad, displays the artist's consistent ability to lend complex melodic verses into simple chord progressions. The playful "Luv to luv" features the kind of vocal precision and acrobatics that have made a star of Jamaican artist Buju Banton and is backed by a masterful blend of acoustic guitars and percussion.
The term "world beat music" is less than a decade old. The music is a genre defined by the heads of a number of small London-based record labels who found that their records from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean were not finding rack space. Major record stores had no obvious place for these unclassified sounds. The average listeners have not. Today the major record chains - Spec's, Best Buy, and others - have responded to buyers' demand to make available music from Africa, Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil and Latin America. Finding releases from Senegal's Kouding Cissoko or Baaba Maal is no problem. Finding the Afro-French, hip-hop sound of Les Nubians is simple; so finding the music of Nacio from Dominica, Gilberto Gil from Brazil, or Bamboleo of Cuba.
This year's Miami concert is a continuation of this ongoing goodwill project, bringing together a host of internationally renowned celebrities, reggae, R&B, and hip-hop artists in an all-day Carnival event with food, arts, crafts, and a vast array of entertainment. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Wyclef Jean Foundation and be donated to charitable organizations. Proceeds from last year's Miami Carnival were given to VHI's "Save The Music" and Oeuvres de Petites Ecoles de P. Bohnen (through Fondation Artistes Creation, a not-for- profit Haitian organization). "Guantanamera," a single from "Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival," featuring Celia Cruz and Jeni Fujita, was nominated for the Best Rap Performance By A Duo or Group. The following year, Wyclef Jean's single, "Gone Till November," was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rap Solo Performance category.
