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• 30 avr 2015

  Abidjan

  Call for papers - Africa

  African popular music: the veritable voices of the people?

  Perhaps for reasons related to intellectual elitism or simply because of the lack of an effective means of analysis, African popular arts (Modern African music in particular) keep on being pushed to the margins of academic discourse on postcolonial cultural identities. To this day and more than not, in classroom discussions on African culture(s), a place of pride is ascribed to literature (at films at times) despite the high rate of illiteracy and difficulty distributing them, which makes these products utterly inaccessible to the masses. That African writers like Ngugi (Kenya) and Boubacar Boris Diop (Senegal) decide to take their leave from colonial languages on behalf on “penning” their stories in African languages is sometimes hailed as an exceptional way towards cultural affirmation and identity recalibration. In terms of their production and consumption, however, popular musical forms have an absolute impact on African populations. These forms are transfigurations of the people’s daily life experience in that they bring together and crystallize the identities of the musical forms in question more than any other artistic expression.

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