West African Pop Roots

Description

Having spent more than twenty years as a performer, manager, and producer of African music, John Collins brings an insider's perspective and a personal passion to this account of popular music in West Africa. He explores the roots of the various styles and genres and the 'feedback' of black music adapted to the New World and returning to Africa to reinfluence its origins. Collins celebrates the personalities and sounds of today's music, its influence on an international audience, the African music business, and the cross-fertilization between African music and that of other cultures. Interspersed with his rich descriptions and historical narratives are colorful biographical sketches of important African musicians along with a wealth of rare photographs of individuals and bands.With the intention of exposing 'the inner driving forces of popular music in Africa', Collins delves into the history of African music, traces its evolution throughout the twentieth century, and explores the current 'world beat' explosion. He demonstrates that the enormous energy generated by African music is in part a result of its polyrhytmic nature and rhythmic spacing, 'the hot sounds and the cool space'. He describes the complexities of African rhythms: the cross-beats, the inside rhythm, the varying tempo, the positive and negative sound, and the rhythmic dialogue. 'African music', Collins observes, 'is a gestalt of opposites that unifies the up and down-beat, head and feet, the audience and performer, into the communion of the beat...There is no separation, only universal 'togetherness"."West African Pop Roots" treats the significant personalities and inside stories of many of its greatest stars, including Manu Dibango with Soul Makossa, E.T. Mensah, Victor Uwaifo, Fela, Youssou N'Dour, and Sonny Okosun, among others. Collins describes the global research for the African roots of pop, which has attracted such Western performers as Ginger Baker, Paul McCartney, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, David Byrne, and many others. The author describes Africa's world-wide influence on music and dance as 'the nearest thing we have in the twentieth century to a global folk music'. Author note: John Collins is manager of the Bokoor Recording Studio (Ghana), acting Chairman of the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation, and is on the Ghanaian National Folklore-Copyright Administration Board. The author of several books and numerous articles about African music, he is a doctoral candidate at State University of New York at Buffalo. Contents Introduction Section One: Roots 1. Traditional Cool and Hot Rhythms. 2. First Fusions-Orchestras and Brass-Bands 3. Palm-Wme and Guitars 4. The Man Who Made a "TradItional" Music Called Kpanlogo Section Two: Feedback 5. Ragtime to Rumba 6. Jazz Comes Home to Africa 7. Soul to Soul Section Three: Today's Sounds and Personalities 8. Fela and the Afro-Beat Revolution 9. The Juju Boom 10. Osibisa's Criss-Cross Rhythms 11. Afro-Rock Catches On 12. Afro-Disco 13. Victor Uwaifo, the Guitar Boy 14. The Drums of Kofi Ayivor 15. The Afro-Reggae of Sonny Okosun and Alpha Blondy 16. Guitar-Band ExplosIon 17. "F" PromotIons 18. LIfe on the Road 19. The African-French ConnectIon 20. Pushed Out by Apartheid 21. The Llbenan Pop Scene 22. Francophone West Africa and the Jali Expenence Section Four: Music Business 23. The African Recordmg Industry 24. African Music Umons 25. Runnmg a Band and a Music Studio in Ghana Section Five: Cross-Overs 26. Africa Goes West 27. The Onginal African Cross-Overs 28. Roots, Rasta, Reggae. 29. Africa and New Wave 30. Black and White About the Author Acknowledgments Index