Music in East Africa is one of several case-study volumes that can be used along with Thinking Musically, the core book in the Global Music Series. Thinking Musically incorporates music from many diverse cultures and establishes the framework for exploring the practice of music around the world. It sets the stage for an array of case-study volumes, each of which focuses on a single area of the world. Each case study uses the contemporary musical situation as a point of departure, covering historical information and traditions as they relate to the present.

Hip hop music that empowers and engages youth in East Africa

"Ethnomusicology in East Africa ... brings together thinkers and artists from Uganda, East Africa and further afield to discuss an area of vital importance to Africans as a people. The book presents selected papers from the First International Symposium on Ethnomusicology in Uganda, held at Makerere University in Kampala on 23-25 November 2009 ... [and] represents an important step in the continued professionalisation of ethnomusicology in Uganda. It presents new work by Uganda-based researchers, from students to academic staff, and solidly places that work within the international scholarly ethnomusicological conversation"--Cover.

'Mashindano' - from Kiswahili, Kushindana (to compete) - is a generic term for any organised competitive event. Here it relates to popular entertainment activities within which cultural groups competing for recognition by their communities, as leaders in their fields. Nineteen leading scholars contribute new studies on this little researched area, making a long overdue contribution to musical scholarship in East Africa, with a focus on Tanzania. The authors address key questions: What are the various roles played by competitive pratices in musical contexts? How do music competitions act as mechanisms of innovation? How do music competitions act as mechanisms of innovation? How do they serve their communities in identity formation? And what, specifically, do competitive music practices communicate, and to whom? Local dance contests, choir competitions, popular entertainment, song duels, and sporting events are all described. Work is drawn from ethnomusicology, history, musicology, anthropology, folklore, and literary, post-colonial, and performance studies.

Cutting across countries, genres, and time periods, this volume explores topics ranging from hip hop’s influence on Maasai identity in current day Tanzania to jazz in Bulawayo during the interwar years, using music to tell a larger story about the cultures and societies of Africa.

Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa brings together important essays on songs and politics in the region and beyond. Through an analysis of the voices from the margins, the authors (contributors) enter into the debate on cultural productions and political change. The theme that cuts across the contributions is that songs are, in addition to their aesthetic appeal, vital tools for exploring how political and social events are shaped and understood by citizens. Urbanization, commercialization and globalization contributed to the vibrancy of East African popular music of the 1990s which was marked by hybridity, syncretism and innovativeness. It was a product of social processes inseparable from society, politics, and other critical issues of the day. The lyrics explored socials cosmology, worldviews, class and gender relations, interpretations of value systems, and other political, social and cultural practices, even as they entertained and provided momentary escape for audience members. Frustration, disenchantments, and emotional fatigue resulting from corrupt and dictatorial political systems that stifle the potential of citizens drove and still drive popular music in Eastern Africa as in most of Africa. Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa is an important addition to the study of popular culture and its role in shaping society.