Tsitsi Ella Jaji, Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music and Pan-African Solidarity

Abstract

'Africa In Stereo' examines the role that African American music has played in the pan-Africanist imagination since the end of the 19th century. Throughout, Jaji marshals a wide array of critical, archival, literary, visual, and sonic sources to craft an argument centered on the stereophonic echoes between three sites on the African continent emblematic of pan-Africanism (Ghana, Senegal, and South Africa) and black musical cultures in the US (as well as few other placeson the diasporic landscape). Stereomodernism and amplifying the Black Atlantic -- Sight reading: early Black South African transcriptions of freedom -- Négritude musicology: poetry, performance and statecraft in Senegal -- What women want: selling hi-fi in consumer magazines and film -- 'Soul to soul': echo-locating histories of slavery and freedom from Ghana -- Pirate's choice: hacking into (post- )pan-African futures -- Epilogue: Singing songs.