"Afrobeat is Way too Big:” a Larger-than-Life Afro-Atlantic Music Form Dr Mopelolade O. Ogunbowale скачать в хорошем качестве

"Afrobeat is Way too Big:” a Larger-than-Life Afro-Atlantic Music Form Dr Mopelolade O. Ogunbowale

The fifth seminar of our series focuses on Afrobeats with Mopelolade O. Ogunbowale is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Africana and American Studies, University at Buffalo. Afrobeats’ rise to global prominence is inspiring knowledge production across several disciplines in the academy. There is growing body of scholarship within the fields of gender studies, literature, musicology and sociology accounting for Afrobeats’ history, globalization, sonic innovations, embodied practices, gender and sexual politics. Despite these groundbreaking efforts, existing scholarship continues to struggles with providing a holistic conceptualization or a “working definition” for Afrobeats that is beyond its sonic composition and stylistic innovations. Without a doubt, extant literature account for the genres’ West African and Black Atlantic historical and musical roots and to a lesser extent, its embodied, gendered and performance practices. Yet, the question of what is or what constitutes Afrobeats remains marginally explored in existing literature. In this paper, I offer useful interventions into these discourses by providing four ways of thinking through Afrobeats, a larger-than-life Afro-Atlantic music form that is slowly gaining scholarly interest and attention. By conceptualizing Afrobeats as fusion music, a dance and fashion movement with a countercultural gender and sexual regime, this paper attempts to provide a “working definition” and a foundational framework for through Afrobeats music Mopelolade O. Ogunbowale is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Africana and American Studies, University at Buffalo where she teaches and conducts research in Afro-Atlantic popular music, religions, feminist and urban studies. Her book project, The Spirit is the Music: Osun’s Aesthetic Manifestations in Reggae-Dancehall Music reads the rhythm and resistance politics of Konto (a reggae-dancehall styled music genre produced in Ajegunle, Lagos) as representative of the creativity, rebelliousness and feminist resistance of Osun (an Afro-Atlantic Goddess synonymous with creation, fluidity, benevolence and malevolence). Afrobeats’ rise to global prominence is inspiring knowledge production across several disciplines in the academy. There is growing body of scholarship within the fields of gender studies, literature, musicology and sociology accounting for Afrobeats’ history, globalization, sonic innovations, embodied practices, gender and sexual politics. Despite these groundbreaking efforts, existing scholarship continues to struggles with providing a holistic conceptualization or a “working definition” for Afrobeats that is beyond its sonic composition and stylistic innovations. Without a doubt, extant literature account for the genres’ West African and Black Atlantic historical and musical roots and to a lesser extent, its embodied, gendered and performance practices. Yet, the question of what is or what constitutes Afrobeats remains marginally explored in existing literature. In this paper, I offer useful interventions into these discourses by providing four ways of thinking through Afrobeats, a larger-than-life Afro-Atlantic music form that is slowly gaining scholarly interest and attention. By conceptualizing Afrobeats as fusion music, a dance and fashion movement with a countercultural gender and sexual regime, this paper attempts to provide a “working definition” and a foundational framework for through Afrobeats music Mopelolade O. Ogunbowale is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Africana and American Studies, University at Buffalo where she teaches and conducts research in Afro-Atlantic popular music, religions, feminist and urban studies. Her book project, The Spirit is the Music: Osun’s Aesthetic Manifestations in Reggae-Dancehall Music reads the rhythm and resistance politics of Konto (a reggae-dancehall styled music genre produced in Ajegunle, Lagos) as representative of the creativity, rebelliousness and feminist resistance of Osun (an Afro-Atlantic Goddess synonymous with creation, fluidity, benevolence and malevolence).