Africa in Stereo

Africa in Stereo raises the bar with new insights into both the sonic and visual realms of art. Transcriptions, performance, poetry, print and new media formats elucidate how Africans on the continent and in the diaspora have been engaged in a continuous dialogue and exchange of cultural particulars throughout the twentieth century. A major contribution is the author's willingness to move beyond a particular village or ethnic group (conventional units of ethnographic analysis) and focus instead on South Africa, Senegal and Ghana, drawing from an interesting array of archival materials to highlight and tease out the forces that made the impulse towards solidarity between Africa and the diaspora possible. * Mumbua Kioko, Volume! The French journal of popular music studies *
Meticulously researched, historically and politically exigent, and adventurous in its archival reach, Africa in Stereo is a path-breaking book that pulsates to the beat of literary, visual, sonic and cultural studies. Tsitsi Jaji has built a bold new sound system for diaspora studies that challenges us to listen closely to the crosscurrents of African aesthetic technologies that forge and inform our modern world. * Daphne Brooks, author of Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 *
This book is unique in its attentiveness to the intricacies, significances and pleasures of listening, notation and reading. It recasts - with great subtlety and eloquence - our understanding o fthe sonic, visual, and literary practices used by Africans in the elaboration and pursuit of pan-Africanism at home and abroad. * Bhekizizwe Peterson, author of Monarchs, Missionaries, and African Intellectuals *