Different Drummers : Rhythm and Race in the Americas by
Long a taboo subject among critics, rhythm finally takes centre stage in this book's dazzling, wide-ranging examination of diverse black cultures across the New World. Munro traces the central role of music in shaping identities, politics, social history, and artistic expression.
The Book of Salsa : A Chronicle of Urban Music From the Caribbean to New York City by
Salsa is one of the most popular types of music listened to and danced to in the United States. This translation of César Miguel Rondón's 'El libro de la salsa' tells the engaging story of salsa's roots in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, and of its emergence and development in the 1960s as a distinct musical movement in New York.
From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz by
Explores the complexity of Cuban dance music and the webs that connect it, musically and historically, to other Caribbean music, to salsa, and to Latin Jazz. This work introduces a set of terms, definitions, and empirical information that allow for a broader, more informed discussion.
Creating Their Own Space : The Development of an Indian-Caribbean Musical Tradition by
Characterized by fast-paced, highly danceable rhythms, Chutney is a fusion of traditional and contemporary Indian and Caribbean influences. In this volume, Tina K. Ramnarine explores the evolution of Chutney and introduces the emerging Indian-Caribbean genre into the arena of scholarly discourse about music. Through analysis of the music, Ramnarine provides insights into social processes, effects of the diasporic settlements, and ways the music operates as a symbol of Indian-Caribbean identity.
Rockin Las Americas : The Global Politics Of Rock In Latin/o America by
Every nation in the Americas—from indigenous Peru to revolutionary Cuba—has been touched by the cultural and musical impact of rock. Rockin' Las Américas is the first book to explore the production, dissemination, and consumption of rock music throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, Brazil, the Andes, and the Southern Cone as well as among Latinos in the United States.
Rhythms of the Afro-Atlantic World : Rituals and Remembrances by
Collecting essays by fourteen expert contributors into a trans-oceanic celebration and critique, Mamadou Diouf and Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo show how music, dance, and popular culture turn ways of remembering Africa into African ways of remembering. With a mix of Nuyorican, Cuban, Haitian, Kenyan, Senegalese, Trinidagonian, and Brazilian beats, Rhythms of the Afro-Atlantic World proves that the pleasures of poly-rhythm belong to the realm of the discursive as well as the sonic and the kinesthetic.
The Defence of Tradition in Brazilian Popular Music : Politics, Culture and the Creation of Música Popular Brasileira by
Sean Stroud examines how and why Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) has come to have such a high status, and why the musical tradition (including MPB) within Brazil has been defended with such vigour for so long. He emphasizes the importance of musical nationalism as an underlying ideology to discussions about Brazilian popular music since the 1920s, and the key debate on so-called 'cultural invasion' in Brazil.
Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse : Popular Music and the Staging of Brazil by
Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse is a close-to-the-ground account of musicians and dancers from Arcoverde, Pernambuco—a small city in the northeastern Brazilian backlands. The book's focus on samba de coco families, marked as bearers of tradition, and the band Cordel do Fogo Encantado, marketed as pop iconoclasts, offers a revealing portrait of performers engaged in new forms of cultural preservation during a post-dictatorship period of democratization and neoliberal reform.
Voices of Drought : The Politics of Music and Environment in Northeastern Brazil by
In Voices of Drought, Michael B. Silvers proposes a scholarship focused on environmental justice to understand key questions in the study of music and the environment. His ecomusicological perspective offers a fascinating approach to events in Ceará, a northeastern Brazilian state affected by devastating droughts. These crises have a profound impact on social difference and stratification, and thus on forró music in the sertão (backlands) of the region. At the same time, the complex interactions of popular music and social conditions also help create the environment.
Caetano Veloso's A Foreign Sound by
What makes a song sound foreign? What makes it sound “American,” or Brazilian? Caetano Veloso's 2004 American songbook album, A Foreign Sound, is a meditation on these questions-but in truth, they were questions he'd been asking throughout his career. Properly heard, the album throws a wrench into received ideas regarding the global hegemony of US popular music, and also what constitutes the Brazilian sound. This book takes listeners back through some of Veloso's earlier considerations of American popular music, and forward to his more recent experiments, in order to explore his take on the relationship between US and Brazilian musical idioms.
Music in Brazil : experiencing music, expressing culture by
As the largest nation in Latin America, Brazil is home to some of the most celebrated music in the world. Music in Brazil covers a wide spectrum of this music, including samba, bossa nova, Tropicália, and MPB (Música Popular Brasileira); regional traditional and popular music; Brazilian rock, rap, and electronica; and such genres as sertaneja (similar to country-and-western music) and brega (sentimental pop).
The City of Musical Memory : Salsa, Record Grooves and Popular Culture in Cali, Colombia by
Salsa is a popular dance music developed by Puerto Ricans in New York City during the 1960s and 70s, based on Afro-Cuban forms. By the 1980s, the Colombian metropolis of Cali emerged on the global stage as an important center for salsa consumption and performance. Despite their geographic distance from the Caribbean and from New York City, Caleños (people from Cali) claim unity with Cubans, Puerto Ricans and New York Latinos by virtue of their having adopted salsa as their own.
Afro-Colombian Hip-Hop : Globalization, Transcultural Music, and Ethnic Identities by
Afro-Colombian Hip-Hop: Globalization, Transcultural Music, and Ethnic Identities, by Christopher Dennis, explores the impact that globalization and the transnational spread of U.S. popular culture—specifically hip-hop and rap—are having on the social identities of younger generations of black Colombians. Along with addressing why and how hip-hop has migrated so effectively to Colombia's black communities, Dennis introduces readers to some of the country's most renowned Afro-Colombian hip-hop artists, their musical innovations, and production and distribution practices.
Music and Revolution : Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba by
Provides an introduction to the most prominent artists and musical styles that have emerged in Cuba since 1959, and to the policies that have shaped artistic life. Tracing the development of dance styles, nueva trova, folkloric drumming, and other forms, this book describes how the arts have become a point of negotiation between individuals.
Cuban Underground Hip Hop : Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity by
In the wake of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, a key state ideology developed: racism was a systemic cultural issue that ceased to exist after the Revolution. But social inequalities tied to racism, sexism, and homophobia endured, and, during the 1990s, widespread economic disparities began to re-emerge. Cuban Underground Hip Hop focuses on a group of self-described anti-racist, revolutionary youth who initiated a social movement (1996–2006) to educate and fight against these inequalities through the use of arts-based political activism intended to spur debate and enact social change.
Tambú : Curaçao's African-Caribbean Ritual and the Politics of Memory by
As contemporary Tambú music and dance evolved on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, it intertwined sacred and secular, private and public cultural practices, and many traditions from Africa and the New World. As she explores the formal contours of Tambú, Nanette de Jong discovers its variegated history and uncovers its multiple and even contradictory origins.
A Day for the Hunter, a Day for the Prey : Popular Music and Power in Haiti by
The history of Haiti throughout the twentieth century has been marked by oppression at the hands of colonial and dictatorial overlords. But set against this "day for the hunter" has been a "day for the prey," a history of resistance, and sometimes of triumph. With keen cultural and historical awareness, Gage Averill shows that Haiti's vibrant and expressive music has been one of the most highly charged instruments in this struggle.
The Inevitable Bandstand : The State Band of Oaxaca and the Politics of Sound by
In the hands of the state, music is a political tool. The Banda de Música del Estado de Oaxaca (State Band of Oaxaca, BME), a civil organization nearly as old as the modern state of Oaxaca itself, offers unique insights into the history of a modern political state. In The Inevitable Bandstand, Charles V. Heath examines the BME's role as a part of popular political culture that the state of Oaxaca has deployed in an attempt to bring unity and order to its domain.
Tejano Proud : Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century by
Chronicles the history of Tex-Mex music in the twentieth century, discussing its origins in Mexican culture, the diversity and complexity of the music, its importance to Mexican Texas culture in the context of Anglo-Mexican relations.
The Mexican Corrido : A Feminist Analysis by
Challenging the stereotypical view of the passive Mexican/Chicana woman of the archetype, the author examines the portrayal of female figures in over three thousand corridos or Mexican ballads and shows that in spite of long-dominant patriarchal ideology, the corridos reveal the presence of self-confident women throughout Mexican history.
¡Corrido! : The Living Ballad of Mexico's Western Coast by
The present compilation of ballads from the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaca documents one of the world's great traditions of heroic song, a tradition that has thrived continuously for the last hundred years. The 107 corridos presented here, gathered during ethnographic research over a period of twenty-five years in settlements on Mexico's Costa Chica and Costa Grande, offer a window into the ethos of heroism among the cultures of Mexico's southwestern coast, a region that has been plagued by recurrent cycles of violence.
Beautiful Politics of Music : Trova in Yucatán, Mexico by
An exploration into the history and practice of trova, a genre of music that is the soul of Yucatán. Yucatecan trova is a music genre comprising a type of romantic song that is considered “the soul of Yucatán and Yucatecans.” This first book on Yucatecan trova offers an insider's view of the history and practice of a treasured cultural heritage. A central theme of Gabriela Vargas-Cetina's ethnography is what she refers to as the “beautiful politics of music” practiced by Yucatecan trova patrons and organizations, which is a way of asserting the importance of groups and issues through nonconfrontational means. Trova emerged on the peninsula at the end of the nineteenth century and continues to be part of the general urban soundscape in the states of Yucatán and Campeche.
Moving Away From Silence : Music of the Peruvian Altiplano and the Experience of Urban Migration by
Andean panpipe and flute music draws its vitality from the traditions of rural highland villages and of rural migrants who have settled in Andean cities. In Moving Away from Silence, Turino describes panpipe and flute traditions in the context of this rural-urban migration and the turbulent politics that have influenced Peruvian society and local identities throughout this century.
Debating the Past : Music, Memory, and Identity in the Andes by
This volume examines how the search for 'cultural authenticity,' the dispute over the past, and the role of 'modernity' have been instrumental in building the regional musical culture of the Mantaro Valley, a central Peruvian region with about half a million inhabitants. How these people have addressed concerns over the loss of ancient traditions by restructuring colonial and pre-Hispanic traditions into new contexts and forms is explored.
My Music Is My Flag : Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917-1940 by
Puerto Rican music in New York is given center stage in Glasser's original and lucid study. Exploring the relationship between the social history and forms of cultural expression of Puerto Ricans, she focuses on the years between the two world wars. Her material integrates the experiences of the Puerto Rican musicians who struggled to make a living during this period with those of their compatriots and the other ethnic groups with whom they shared the cultural landscape.
Listening to Salsa : Gender, Latin Popular Music, and Puerto Rican Cultures by
The pulsing beats of salsa, merengue, and bolero are a compelling expression of Latine culture, but few outsiders comprehend the music's implications in larger social terms. Frances R. Aparicio places this music in context by combining the approaches of musicology and sociology with literary, cultural, Latino, and women's studies.
Juan Bautista Plaza and Musical Nationalism in Venezuela by
Juan Bautista Plaza (1898-1965) was one of the most important musicians in the history of Venezuela. In addition to composing in a variety of genres and styles, he was the leading figure in Venezuelan music education and musicology at a time when his compatriots were seeking to solidify their cultural identity.
Music of the Warao of Venezuela : Song People of the Rain Forest by
For the Warao, who live in a rain forest habitat that remains relatively undisturbed by outside influences, nearly all aspects of life include music; it offers diversion, stability, protection, and power. Olsen divides their musical genres into three categories: music for pleasure, such as dancing; music for utility, including lullabies; and music for theurgy--the largest group, which includes all songs pertaining to cosmology or calling upon supernatural forces.