African Music as Text

Abstract

In so far as they constitute complex messages rooted in specific cultural practices, the varieties of African music known to us today may be designated as text. While performing practice and audience participation vary according to genre, the activity of meaning construction remains essential to all participants. We only have to listen to the elaborate vocal polyphony of BaAka Pygmies, the polyrhythmic dance-drumming of Fon, Anlo-Ewe, or Yoruba, the horn ensembles of the Banda-Linda; or Zairean soukous, Nigerian jùjú and fújì, Ghanaian Highlife, South African mbube; or the compositions of Fela Sowande, Akin Euba, Ephraim Amu, and Joshua Uzoigwe to begin to appreciate the kinds of fantasies that music in motion elicits.