They don't care about us

Representing the black postcolonial subject through the appropriation of Michael Jackson in Gabonese urban dance

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2173133
AutoresA Aterianus-Owanga (0000-0001-6926-0028, FMSH/IFAS, Johannesburg, South Africa, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume31
Fascículo3
Páginas369-384
Data de publicação2019-09-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13696815.2016.1266464
OpenAlexW2568711904
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas26

This essay recounts both the intertwined history of the hip-hop appropriation and the identification to the figure of Michael Jackson in Gabon, from the 1980s to nowadays. It questions how transatlantic musical dialogues have provided the African youth with a way of representing a black subject freed from (post)colonial complexes. Drawing on historical and ethnographic data, this paper focuses on several imitators of Michael Jackson, and mainly on the case of Michael Anicet, a dancer who built his career and his fame on the imitation of Michael Jackson choreographies. It describes his pathway, his performances and how he transformed Michael Jackson's dances in order to 'gabonize' it, focusing mainly on his reception and appropriation of the song and choreography of the track 'They don't care about us'. This essay finally proves how the identification to global black icons has constituted the lever for an identity construction which combines nationalist claims and connections with a transnational blackness

Appropriation · Art · Art history · Choreography · Colonialism · Dance · Ethnography · Literature · Musical · Nationalism · Politics · Sociology · Subject (documents · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society