Playing the backbeat in Conakry

Miriam Makeba and the cultural politics of Sékou Touré's Guinea, 1968-1986

Bibliographic Data

ID3611599
AuthorsYair Hashachar (0000-0002-3699-7805, “APARTHEID-STOPS” European Research Council Project, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume43
Issue2
Pages259-273
Publication date2017-05-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Dynamics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02533952.2017.1364467
OpenAlexW2767242238
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited39

This article revisits the cultural history of Guinea in the three decades following independence through focusing on the musical activity of Miriam Makeba, the exiled South African singer who resided in the country between the years 1968 and 1986. Recent scholarship has illuminated the vast investment of the Guinean state in developing modern national culture as part of the process of decolonisation as well as the limited freedom of expression, imposed by the state, that subjugated local cultural production. While these studies have concentrated primarily on Guinean cultural agents, this paper explores transnational dimensions within the cultural politics of Guinea. It highlights Makeba’s emplacement in Guinea in the context of nation building, Pan-Africanism, cold war politics and black transnational cultural exchanges. By focusing on the disparity between textual sources and musically embedded meanings extracted from Makeba’s music recorded in Guinea, this paper recasts Makeba as a conduit of African-American musical influences in the Guinean scene. By doing so, it uncovers cultural spaces that were not subordinated to official state ideology mediated through print culture, and thus have hitherto been unrecognised in mainstream historiography

Art · Context (archaeology · Decolonization · Historiography · Humanities · Ideology · Musical · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · State (computer science · Visual arts · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · History · Law

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