Preface:

This class introduced fellows to the contemporary music of the African continent as a means to coming to know the history and politics of Africa and her peoples, and to con-sider questions raised about the origins of humankind as they pertain to particular sites in Africa. The course covered music that is indigenous to a region or borrowed and remade; popular, traditional, religious or art music; music with a particular social purpose; music generated electroni-cally or performed face to face. While the music of the old African diaspora (e.g. jazz, gospel, soul) has become a criti-cal part of the popular mainstream, the music of newly ar-rived Africans, some of whom may be in your classrooms, remains largely unknown outside of it place of origin. This class opened up the possibility of putting the music of contemporary Africa and her peoples into the school cur-riculum.