Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism

i've been watching nollywood films on netflix as i exercise in the morning. talk about country music: despair over love, your cheating heart, rags to riches, riches to rags, quick and easy and fast emotions; moaning and dancing and laughing and crying, all close to the bone, close to the surface. country music just the right sort of accompaniment for all the action and styles. it's popular style, made for any age group. easy to see how nigeria swooped it up.

ironic, too, to think, when kenny rogers was popular in my youth, here on the other side of the world in nigeria he too was popular.

was this true throughout the continent?? i wonder.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Yahaya Danjuma <yahaya.danjuma@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2020 3:55 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism

 

On Nov 20, 2020, at 23:54, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

Nigerians/Africans' relationship with country music is a subject that requires a sustained academic investigation.

I hope it's not too late to jump in on this thread, which seems to have gone all over everywhere.

Country music has deep African roots, which probably helps to explain its popularity in Africa.

The banjo's being the most obviously African musical instrument to have survived slavery in the US is only the most tactile example of that African influence.

Ethnomusicologists have been exploring other aspects of Country's African roots. Alas I have no musical talent myself and thus can only report what others discover.

I talked a little about it in "The African Heritage of White America" in _Africanisms in American Culture_ edited by J.E. Holloway.

Others picked up on it and I was able to report more in the book's second edition.

Country music has never been completely white in the United States.

Oral tradition has it that Deford Bailey was first to play at the Grand Ole Opry.

Even when Country tried to segregate itself they couldn't stop Ray Charles from recording country music.

But "white" culture in the US has never been completely European. If we're smart we learn where we can.

We've just had trouble acknowledging that fact about ourselves. Or some of us have.

I think one reason US culture has been so popular around the world is that mixing.


John Edward Philips  <http://human.cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/philips/>
International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University
"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer
<http://newworldafricanpress.com/books/000026.htm>

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/C947231C-A09A-4EB3-8FA8-FF1C2C8A6BC2%40gmail.com.