Lyrical Opponency in Amazigh Music: The Racial and Gender Question in Tanddamt

A very significant sub-version that derives from Tirruyssa (ⵜⵉⵔⴻⵢⵙⴰ) is called Tanddamt (ⵜⴰⵏⴹⴰⵎⵜ), which refers to musical jousting between two seemingly opponent Rways and/or Raysat. Each singer attempts to address convincing and satirical chants to the opponent singer. Tanddamt is rich of social topoi such as race and gender. This chapter aims to deconstruct the discursive contexts that gave rise to the derivative form of tanddamt, and provide an in-depth analysis of the assorted images of eloquence and satire in the discourse of this melodious genre of contest. A close reading of the conversational poetics of tanddamt shall provide us with profound insight into individual as well as social worries and memories as expressed in the art of Tirruyssa. While the black-versus-white tanddamt triggers an historical debate of racial discourse, blackness, negritude, and slavery, the male-versus-female tanddamt revisits an everlasting discourse of gender discontentment. These binaries are an inherent subject in Amazigh music and constitute a source of acoustic pleasure for the audience. I argue that Tanddamt, as a refined art of lyrical opponency provides a considerable space for ‘subaltern’ expression in the public sphere, which sets it as a propitious canonical genre, amply instrumental in the enrichment of world literature.