African musics in Europe

Abstract

For centuries, close and multifaceted connections between Europe and Africa have been articulated through imperialism and colonisation, economic and cultural exchanges, decolonisation processes and postcolonial heritage, and have been determined by the conditions of the diverse regions involved, resulting in the complex entanglements of the present global era. These connections have been marked by unbalanced power relations and economic asymmetries, as well as by ambiguous relationships of fascination and the construction and negotiation of Otherness based on race, ethnicity, religion, cultural traits, and social norms. Over the past decades, a rich literature in the field of postcolonial studies has tackled various aspects of the relations between Europe and Africa (and the former colonised world at large) and reflected critically on the long-lasting and everexpanding impact of colonialism. Such scholarship has revealed the inhumanity, violence, and racism of this oppression, and how its consequences have permeated almost every aspect of social, cultural, and artistic life, but has also brought to light forms of agency, strategies of resilience, spaces for negotiation, and acts of rebellion (Baaz 2001; Bhabha 1994; Gilroy 1993; Loomba 2005; Mamdani 1996; Mudimbe 1988; Said 1978). Music and other performing arts have played a significant role in intercultural relations by participating in imaginaries about those conceptualised as Others and have usually corroborated stereotypes of Otherness. This seems to be especially true for African musics and dances, whose repertoires, practices, instruments, and aesthetics have been imagined and perceived by the European hegemonic episteme in terms of sonic alterity and visual difference, representing the exotic, and embodying the ancestral, traditional, and untamed (Agawu 2003; Carl 2011; Castaldi 2006; Gilroy 1993). For the European gaze, the Otherness of African musics is often strictly tied to Blackness as both a visual and auditory feature, although, unlike for example North America, the racial element normally remains unstated by audiences, scholars, and performers (Radano and Bohlman 2000; Rastas and Seye 2016). From pre-colonial visual depictions and verbal descriptions in travellers’ accounts to colonial field recordings, from postcolonial commodification of African repertoires and genres in the world music global market to their massification as an exotic accompaniment, thick imaginings of Otherness have tinged African performative practices. Inequalities in power have meant that Africa and Europe are differently able to express their ideas, shape representations, and influence imaginaries of Otherness and sameness. European-derived representations of African performative practices and aesthetics