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Black American Music and the Civilized-Uncivilized Matrix in South Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2021
Extract
In a recent article by Veit Erlmann in the South African journal of musicology (SAMUS vol. 14, 1995) entitled “Africa Civilized, Africa Uncivilized,” Erlmann draws upon the reception history of the South African Zulu Choir’s visit to London in 1892 and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo presence in Paul Simon’s Graceland project to highlight the epithet “Africa civilized, Africa uncivilized.” Though the term was used by the turn of the century British press to publicize the event, the slogan carries far greater impact upon the locus of the identity of urban black people in South Africa for more than a century.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 1996
Footnotes
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Johann Buis is currently Assistant Professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of Georgia in Athens. Among his numerous academic honors are a Fulbright Fellowship and the Jules Kramer Award for Early Music Performance Practice (Orff Institute, Music Academy” Mozarteum, “ Salzburg, Austria). He was most recently a Rockefeller scholar at the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago. His articles and reviews have appeared in Ethnomusicology, MLA Notes, and the International Library of African Music Annual Symposium Proceedings.
References
Notes
1. For further details on this issue, see Erlmann, Veit, African Stars, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991 Google Scholar.
2. Malnig, Julie, Dancing Till Dawn, 1992, p. 7 Google Scholar.
3. Graham, Ronnie, Stern’s Guide to Contemporary African Music, London: Pluto Press, 1988, p. 27 Google Scholar. South Africa’s music industry has been governed by two overarching principles: first, black American-influenced (jazz and swing) but uniquely African urban music genres, and second, collective exploitation by the white-controlled music industry (whether state control, demolition of townships serving as cultural icons, or musicians forced into exile).
4. Ibid., p. 28.
5. Quoted in Hamm, Charles, Putting Popular Music in Its Place, London: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 327 Google Scholar.
6. Whiteman, Paul and McBride, Mary Margaret, Jazz, New York, 1926, p. 9 Google Scholar.
7. Hamm, Putting Popular Music in Its Place, p. 183.
8. Coplan, David, In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theater, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985, p. 70 Google Scholar.