Sound of Africa!

Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music, Pop & Rock, Popular, Music Styles
Cover of the book Sound of Africa! by Louise Meintjes, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Louise Meintjes ISBN: 9780822384632
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: February 5, 2003
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Louise Meintjes
ISBN: 9780822384632
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: February 5, 2003
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

Boosting the bass guitar, blending the vocals, overdubbing percussion while fretting over shoot-outs in the street. Grumbling about a producer, teasing a white engineer, challenging an artist to feel his African beat. Sound of Africa! is a riveting account of the production of a mbaqanga album in a state-of-the-art recording studio in Johannesburg. Made popular internationally by Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, mbaqanga's distinctive style features a bass solo voice and soaring harmonies of a female frontline over electric guitar, bass, keyboard, and drumset. Louise Meintjes chronicles the recording and mixing of an album by Izintombi Zesimanje, historically the rival group of the Mahotella Queens. Set in the early 1990s during South Africa’s tumultuous transition from apartheid to democratic rule, Sound of Africa! offers a rare portrait of the music recording process. It tracks the nuanced interplay among South African state controls, the music industry's transnational drive, and the mbaqanga artists' struggles for political, professional, and personal voice.

Focusing on the ways artists, producers, and sound engineers collaborate in the studio control room, Meintjes reveals not only how particular mbaqanga sounds are shaped technically, but also how egos and artistic sensibilities and race and ethnicity influence the mix. She analyzes how the turbulent identity politics surrounding Zulu ethnic nationalism impacted mbaqanga artists' decisions in and out of the studio. Conversely, she explores how the global consumption of Afropop and African images fed back into mbaqanga during the recording process. Meintjes is especially attentive to the ways the emotive qualities of timbre (sound quality or tone color) forge complex connections between aesthetic practices and political ideology. Vivid photos by the internationally renowned photographer TJ Lemon further dramatize Meintjes’ ethnography.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Boosting the bass guitar, blending the vocals, overdubbing percussion while fretting over shoot-outs in the street. Grumbling about a producer, teasing a white engineer, challenging an artist to feel his African beat. Sound of Africa! is a riveting account of the production of a mbaqanga album in a state-of-the-art recording studio in Johannesburg. Made popular internationally by Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, mbaqanga's distinctive style features a bass solo voice and soaring harmonies of a female frontline over electric guitar, bass, keyboard, and drumset. Louise Meintjes chronicles the recording and mixing of an album by Izintombi Zesimanje, historically the rival group of the Mahotella Queens. Set in the early 1990s during South Africa’s tumultuous transition from apartheid to democratic rule, Sound of Africa! offers a rare portrait of the music recording process. It tracks the nuanced interplay among South African state controls, the music industry's transnational drive, and the mbaqanga artists' struggles for political, professional, and personal voice.

Focusing on the ways artists, producers, and sound engineers collaborate in the studio control room, Meintjes reveals not only how particular mbaqanga sounds are shaped technically, but also how egos and artistic sensibilities and race and ethnicity influence the mix. She analyzes how the turbulent identity politics surrounding Zulu ethnic nationalism impacted mbaqanga artists' decisions in and out of the studio. Conversely, she explores how the global consumption of Afropop and African images fed back into mbaqanga during the recording process. Meintjes is especially attentive to the ways the emotive qualities of timbre (sound quality or tone color) forge complex connections between aesthetic practices and political ideology. Vivid photos by the internationally renowned photographer TJ Lemon further dramatize Meintjes’ ethnography.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book The Transparent Traveler by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Junot Díaz and the Decolonial Imagination by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book New Asian Marxisms by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Erotic Innocence by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Rhythms of the Pachakuti by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Trans-Status Subjects by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book The Tao and the Logos by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Ontological Terror by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Phonology as Human Behavior by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Reclaiming the Discarded by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Archipelagic American Studies by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book Materializing Democracy by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book New Directions in Telecommunications by Louise Meintjes
Cover of the book The Crisis of Secularism in India by Louise Meintjes
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy