Music, Modernity, and the Global Imagination

How do Western images of Africa and African representations of the West mirror each other? In this text the author illuminates the complex issues involved in the making of modern identities in Africa, Europe and the USA, focusing on two episodes in the history of black South African music.

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How do Western images of Africa and African representations of the West mirror each other? In this study, Veit Erlmann seeks to illuminate the complex issues involved in the making of modern identities in Africa, Europe, and the United States, through an examination of two striking episodes in the history of black South African music: the tours of two black South African choirs in England and America in the 1890s, and a series of engagements with the international music industry by South Africa's premier choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo after the release of Paul Simon's Graceland album in 1986.