Music of the African Diaspora

(Onondaga Community College)

Instructor: Samuel B. Cushman

Course Description: This course is a study of African music and its influence on other cultures (specifically those of the African Diaspora). There are no prerequisites.

Learning Outcomes: Upon satisfactory completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the distinctive features of at least one non-Western culture.

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the interplay of the economic, political, and social institutions between at least one non-Western culture and Western societies.

  • Describe the historical and contemporary societal factors that shaped the development of the African diaspora and related musical outgrowths.

  • Analyze the role that complex social structures and systems play in the creation and perpetuation of dynamics of power, privilege, oppression, and opportunity within the history, present and future of the African diaspora.

  • Develop a critical awareness of the principles of rights, access, equity, and autonomous participation in the past, current, and future iterations of the Western canon and musics of the African diaspora.

Grading & Evaluation:

•       25%    Classwork & Participation

  • You are expected to come to each class meeting prepared and ready to participate (do the readings!)

  • You will be graded each week on your participation in discussions and other class activities

•       50%    Reflective Essays (3 essays total)

  • You will be assigned three reflective essays throughout the semester

  • These essays will ask you to reflect on the assigned readings, lecture materials, listening examples, etc.

•       25%    Final Research Project

  • You will have weekly pre-writing deadlines after the project is assigned

  • Each student will give a short presentation during the final week of class

  • You will submit a formal research paper (4-5 pages)

Weekly Schedule (schedule and topics are subject to change)

Unit 1: Definitions, Origins, and Identities

Week 1:

·      What is the African Diaspora?

·      Intro to the Music of the African Diaspora

  • Podcast (for Thurs 1/30): “The Birth of American Music,” New York Times, 1619 Project Podcast.

  • Week 1 Reading: Floyd Jr., Samuel A. “African Music, Religion, and Narrative.” The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 14-34.

 

Week 2:

·      Discuss Week 1 Reading

·      Key Features of African Musics

  • Week 2 Reading: Agawu, Kofi. “The Invention of African Rhythm.” Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions, Taylor & Francis, 2003, pp. 56-70.

·      Reflective Essay #1 Assigned

 

Week 3:

·      Discuss Week 2 Reading

·      Music of the Yoruba People

  • Reading: Yussuf, N. Babátúndé. “Traditional Music and the Expression of Yoruba Socio-cultural Values: A Historical Analysis. Muziki, vol. 15, no. 2, 2018, pp. 61-74.

 

Unit II: Syncretism, Hybridity, and Creolization

Week 4:

·      Intro to Musics of the Caribbean

  • Week 4 Reading: Manuel, Peter, et al. “Introduction: The Caribbean Crucible.” Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Temple University Press, 2016, pp. 1-19.

 

Week 5: 

·      Creolization, Cultural Syncretism, and Musical Hybridity in the Caribbean

  • In-class film: Caribbean Crucible (1984)

·      Reflective Essay #1 Due

·      Discuss Week 4 Reading

·      Reflective Essay #2 Assigned

 

Week 6:

·      Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Cuban Music

·      Indo-Caribbean Music

  • In-class film: Chutney in Yuh Soca: A Multicultural Mix (1997)

  • Week 6 Reading: Carney, Court. “New Orleans and the Creation of Early Jazz.” Popular Music and Society, vol. 29, no. 3, 2006, pp. 299-315.

 

Week 7:

·      Discuss Week 6 Reading

·      New Orleans and the Birth of Jazz

  • In-class film: Burns, Ken. “Gumbo.” Jazz. PBS, 2001.

  • Reading: Carney, Court. “New Orleans and the Creation of Early Jazz.” Popular Music and Society, vol. 29, no. 3, 2006, pp. 299-315.

·      Reflective Essay #2 Due

***SPRING BREAK***

Unit III: Influence, Appropriation, and Resistance in U.S. Popular Music

Week 8:

·      Blues, the Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance

·      “Race Records” and the Early Recording Industry

  • Week 8 Reading: Davis, Angela. “Up in Harlem Every Saturday Night: Blues and the Black Aesthetic.” Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. Vintage Press, 1999, pp. 138-160.

·      Reflective Essay #3 Assigned

 

Week 9:

·      Discuss Week 8 Reading

·      Rhythm & Blues, Rock & Roll, and Motown

  • In-class film: Muscle Shoals (excerpts)

  • Week 9 Reading: Hamilton, Jack. “Introduction: Dreams and Nightmares.” Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination. Harvard University Press, 2016, pp. 1-16.

 

Week 10:

· Funk, Rock, and Afrofuturism

·      Discuss readings for weeks 8-9, Muscle Shoals documentary

·      Reflective Essay #3 Due

 

Unit V: Remix and (Re)invention 

Week 11:

·      Final Project Assigned Tues 4/15

·      Reggae and Sound System Culture

  • 808 documentary (excerpts)

  • Week 11 Reading:  Sullivan, Paul. “The Kingston Context.” Remixology: Tracing the Dub Diaspora. Reaktion Books, 2014, pp. 13-30.

 

Week 12 (4/21-4/25):

·      The Birth and Evolution of Hip-Hop

·      Project proposals and preliminary bibliography due Tuesday, 4/22

  • Netflix, Hip-Hop Evolution (Episode 1)

  • Week 12 Reading: Watkins, S. Craig. “Introduction: Back in the Day.” Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Beacon Press, 2006, pp. 9-29.

 

Week 13:

·     Discuss hip-hop origins and evolution

·      Annotated bibliography due

  • Soundcloud Scenes (Plugg) documentary

Week 14:

·      Final presentations in class

·      Final paper due