This dissertation undertakes a comparative analysis of the musical, written, and spoken production of Sun Ra and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti with respect to the larger African Atlantic intellectual environment, situating the two artists as both shapers of an Atlantic intellectual culture as well as artists who were, in turn, shaped by that culture. Through a reading of their creative work, the dissertation argues that, even given the obvious cultural, temporal, and temperamental differences between Sun Ra and Fela, both artists' orientations toward musical composition and performance share similar preoccupations with the recitation of cultural memory and the dialogic creation of historical narratives which is called Composing the African Atlantic. In the dissertation the concept Composing the African Atlantic is proposed as a means of describing an African diasporic version of musical composition which includes many of the so-called extramusical elements of text and performance - audience participation and dialogue being key - as constitutive elements of composition such that, in their absence, the music is not fully realized. Stated in the active present tense (Composing), identified as culturally rooted (African), and formed within a broad and discursively contested space (Atlantic), Composing the African Atlantic describes the means by which composers such as Sun Ra and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti conceive of performance as an essential part of composition, enabling the musicians and audience to craft the true Text of the music through the activation of communal memory and the dialogic contestation of history. The result, in the case of both artists, is the creation of a singular compositional and performative style which maintains its connection to its core audience through the use of ritualized concert performance, the challenging of historical myths, and the performance of historical narratives which refute the Hegelian contention that Africa is "no historical part of the world." In the process, both artists assert that there is a common African cultural memory which exists throughout the African diaspora as a result, fundamentally, of the Atlantic slave trade, but which is also a living, contemporary, cosmopolitan dialectic of representation and re-presentation.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-08-08T11:30:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Raphael Fernando Amaral.pdf: 1223789 bytes, checksum: bd0f8b6773118e7694112dbd907a1fe6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T11:30:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Raphael Fernando Amaral.pdf: 1223789 bytes, checksum: bd0f8b6773118e7694112dbd907a1fe6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-06-22 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / The present research aims to understande the influences of afrobeat, nigerian musical style, and its main creator, the musician Fela Kuti, concerning emergente musical productions in the urban context at contemporary Brazil. The central scope of the research consists on how musicians and activists have taken the afrobeat as a stylistic and aesthetic reference. Through the analysis of phonographic production and cultural activities it’s noticed that the afrobeat music bacame a new basis for identity and musical dialogue. It explores also the political clashes around the incorporation of afrobeat into different social and ethnic extracts. It is also emphasized that through this style, a new black and young affirmation has been made in the context of the metropolis’ peripheries in Brazil. Inserted in the Cultural Studies, this investigation’s relevance stems from the fact that, with the afrobeat, it is possible to understand certain facets about how occur the cultural movements, identity reconfigurations and a new formations of subjectivities between Africa and America by the routes of the black diaspora / A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender as influências do afrobeat, estilo musical nigeriano, e de seu principal criador, o músico Fela Kuti, sobre as produções musicais emergentes no contexto urbano no Brasil contemporâneo. O escopo central da pesquisa consiste no modo como músicos e ativistas tomaram o afrobeat como referência estilística e estética. Por meio da análise da produção fonográfica e de atividades culturais se percebe que a música afrobeat se tornou uma nova base de diálogo musical e identitário. Explora, também, os embates políticos em torno da incorporação do afrobeat em diferentes extratos sociais e étnicos. Destaca que, por meio desse estilo, uma nova afirmação negra e jovem se fez no contexto das periferias das metrópoles no Brasil. Inserida nos Estudos Culturais, a relevância dessa investigação decorre do fato que, com o afrobeat, é possível compreender determinadas facetas sobre como ocorrem as movimentações culturais, reconfigurações identitárias e a formação de novas subjetividades entre a África e a América pelas rotas da diáspora negra

This thesis is an investigation into the historical evolution of Ajegunle Raga, a reggae form developed within an urban ghetto in Lagos called Ajegunle and the construction and negotiation of identities therein. The research further argues that Ajegunle Raga is a home-grown oppositional music subculture that draws inspiration from diasporic musical subcultures like Reggae and Hip Hop but retains a genuine representation of Ajegunle in its tales of survival, poverty, marginalization and expressions of creativity within the ambience of the music.