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Music As an Agent of Political Expression*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2016

Willard Rhodes
Willard Rhodes*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

It is a time-worn cliché that music is an important constituent element of African culture closely associated and integrated with the daily living of the African—a cliché that would not merit repetition here were it not for the fact that this statement has rarely been applied to political activities in African societies. Ethnographers and ethnomusicologists have reported the music and the music making of various tribes in relation to religion, the “rites de passage,” agriculture, work, and social life, but the use of music as an agent of political expression has received scant attention.

In a pioneer study of African music von Hornbostel wrote: “In the life of so-called primitive man, and especially of the African Negroes, music and dance have quite different and incomparably greater significance than with us. … Music is neither reproduction (of a ‘piece of music’ as an existing object) nor production (of a new object), it is the life of a living spirit working within those who dance and sing” (Hornbostel 1928: 32). The spirit animating all Africans today is one of independence from colonialism, freedom, and nationalism. In a paper pregnant with ideas and suggestions for new approaches in the study of African music, William Bascom has written: “It is my belief that we would better understand change in political beliefs if we knew more about the way in which music, the dance, or any other forms of traditional behavior develop, and of how they are modified by the outside influences with which they are brought in contact.” (Bascom 1959: 7) It is the purpose of this paper to examine and assess the function and role of African music in contemporary political movements with special attention to the repertory of songs.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , May 1962 , pp. 14 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1962

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Footnotes

*

This paper is based in part on field work done in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1958-1959, supported by grants from the United States Educational Commission in the United Kingdom (Fulbright), London, England, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Ruth M. Knight Foundation which I gratefully acknowledge. I wish to express my appreciation to Alan P. Merriam, Northwestern University, and J. K. Nketia, University of Ghana, who read this paper in its early stage and offered criticisms, suggestions and information. Absolom Vilikazi, Kennedy School of Missions, Hartford Seminary Foundation, was most kind in checking the translations of the Zulu song texts. And to Isaac Banda, folk composer and friend, my deep thanks for his generosity in recording for me his songs and supplying me with the original texts and their translations.

References

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