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Agawu Kofi . The African Imagination in Music. New York : Oxford University Press , 2016. 372 pp. Photographs. Discography. Videography. Bibliography. Index. $27.95. Paper. ISBN: 978-0-19-026321-8.
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LANGUAGES, LITERATURE, CINEMA, AND ARTS
Kofi Agawu's recent work is a tantalizing tour de force that surveys the depth and breadth of African music and African music scholarship, arranged according to individual chapters that focus on what he calls the "canonical topics": "Music and/in Society," "Musical Instruments," Language and/in Society," "The Rhythmic Imagination," "The Melodic Imagination," "The Formal Imagination," "Harmony, or Simultaneous Doing," and "Appropriating African Music." Though the majority of the more in-depth case studies feature music cultures from Ghana (where Agawu was born), he admirably does much to avoid the typical academic focus on West Africa. Discussions and examples are provided that cover the entirety of sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa. Agawu also provides a reference list of one hundred compact disc recordings that can serve as an accompaniment to the text and...