Afrobeat first emerged in the late 1960s amid the rapidly changing postcolonial terrain of Lagos, Nigeria. Created by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938-1997), the genre blends scathing anti-establishment lyrics with Yoruba traditional music and Western forms, particularly jazz. Felas ideological dictum: Music is the Weapon of the Future, encapsulates his view of music as an oppositional tool, his enactment of which led to frequent violent confrontations with the Nigerian state. Throughout his lifetime, Fela held hegemonic sway over afrobeats stylistic and ideological trajectories. However, following his death, the genre has witnessed a global upsurge with protégés emerging in New York City, San Francisco, Paris, London and other cultural capitals of the world.
In my dissertation, I chronicle afrobeats transnational networks and discuss processes of stylistic and ideological affiliation through which such networks have emerged. Using the conceptual tool of genre as social process, I combine archival and ethnographic data collected during several months of fieldwork in the United States and Nigeria, in order to argue the conditionality of genre definitions and boundaries.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12092010-141235 |
Date | 30 January 2011 |
Creators | Dosunmu, Oyebade Ajibola |
Contributors | Laurence Glasco, PhD, Mary Lewis, PhD (Emerita), Akin Euba, Nathan Davis, PhD, Jean-Jacques Sene, PhD, Department of History, Chatham University |
Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12092010-141235/ |
Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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