The aim of this book is to stimulate debate by offering a critique of discourse about African music. Who writes about African music, how, and why? What assumptions and prejudices influence the presentation of ethnographic data? Even the term "African music" suggests there is an agreed-upon meaning, but African music signifies differently to different people. This book also poses the question then, "What is African music?" Agawu offers a new and provocative look at the history of African music scholarship that will resonate with students of ethnomusicology and post-colonial studies. He offers an alternative "Afro-centric" means of understanding African music, and in doing so, illuminates a different mode of creativity beyond the usual provenance of Western criticism. This book will undoubtedly inspire heated debate-and new thinking-among musicologists, cultural theorists, and post-colonial thinkers. It also includes 15 musical examples.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Colonialism's Impact 2. The Archive 3. The Invention of "African Rhythm" 4. Polymeter, Additive Rhythm, and Other Enduring Myths 5. African Music as Text 6. Popular Music Defended Against its Devotees 7. Contesting Difference 8. How Not to Analyze African Music 9. The Ethics of Representation Epilogue References

Reviews

At times frankly informative, at times darkly ironic, and at times passionately earnest, Representing African Music reads like a resource text, satire, and manifesto all at once...[offers a] trenchant critique of otherwise neutral-seeming representations of African music.. makes many daring statements and reaches a series of alarming conclusions...Those in search of a genuinely global musical discourse...could do much worse than begin their quest by reading Agawu's Representing African Music. His is the unmistakable voice of authentic hope..