A Brief History of African Art Music and Pan-Africanism
by: Joshua A. Kerobo
Series: 1. What is African Art Music?
Theme: 1. Understanding African Art Music
Issue: 1
Introduction: African Art Music and Pan-Africanism
African art music is art music created by anyone of African descent, informed by African cultural traditions and European art music training. It is a product of the colonial encounter and postcolonial interactions that affect the lives of African musicians and music scholars. While situated within Western (or Western-influenced) music academies and thereafter, African musicians made documented music decisions that were influenced by their understandings of the African music cultures they brought with them. They grew global knowledge in the study of African music. Thus, African art music is an art music that uses "stylistic and instrumental materials of African music," that can be created or performed by anyone.
Pan-Africanism is an ideological term summarizing the basis for African unity, after considering the colonial encounter and postcolonial interactions with former colonial powers and neocolonialists. It calls for the political, economic, and cultural unification of Africans and the Afro-Diaspora:
- to gain socio-political independence from former colonialists and neocolonialists,
- to develop Afro/Afro-Diasporic communities, and
- to counter global discrimination by positively centering Afro/Afro-Diasporic cultures (known as Negritude in 1930’s Francophone African world)
I've defined Pan-Africanism because it is at the ideological core of African art music; African art music wouldn't exist without Pan-Africanism. The political, economic, and cultural assertions of Pan-African thought among Afro/Afro-Diasporic communities in the late 19th-20th centuries gave way to the development of African art music. As Pan-Africanists pushed for political change with the West, Afro/Afro-Diasporic peoples gained new opportunities to speak and act for themselves.
African music practitioners, such as Dr. Kwabena Nketia and Dr. Akin Euba, directly benefitted from the expansion of research and performance opportunities in the West and in other Afro/Afro-Diasporic communities as a result of Pan-Africanism. We should remember that these advancements can be traced to key events and figures in the African independence movement inspired by Pan-Africanism, such as the Pan-African Congresses and Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana.
Pan-Africanism in Action: The Pan-African Congresses (1919-) and Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72)
The Pan-African Congresses are a series of eight meetings where leaders of African descent met to discuss issues of importance to Black/African liberation worldwide. Their goals were to make coordinated political, cultural, and economic decisions that would provoke Black/African sovereignty in Africa and its diasporas. The first Congress was in London (1919) and the most recent took place in Johannesburg (2014). The Congresses follow the first Pan-African Conference (1900) organized by Trinidadian lawyer, politician, and activist Henry Sylvester-Williams in London. Sylvester-Williams was one of the first Black men to hold public office in England and was the first Black man to practice law in the Cape Colony (now ZA).
The fifth Pan-African Congress held on October 15th-17th in Manchester (1945) is the most relevant event connecting Pan-Africanism and African art music. The Congress is noted commemoratively at Chorlton Town Hall, All Saints, Manchester as a "historic event [because] decisions taken at [the] conference led to liberation of African countries." Leaders of African descent from Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia met in the wake of WWII, eager to add Black/African liberation as an imperative of the postwar era.
Kwame Nkrumah is listed with five other towering figures of Pan-Africanism as an active participant in the event. Nkrumah was initially Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in the m.-to-l. 1950s, then he served as Ghana's first President after it gained independence on March 6th, 1957. His discussions with other Pan-African leaders of issues such as "'The Colour Problem in Britain'; 'Imperialism in North and West Africa'; 'Oppression in South Africa'; 'The Problem in the Caribbean'; and 'Women in the West Indies'" directly contributed to Black liberation and African independence. They helped guide the political, economic, and cultural imperatives of a Pan-Africanism that benefitted African art music creators on the African continent and in the West.
Musical Legacies of Pan-Africanism: Kwabena Nketia (1921-2019), Akin Euba (1935-2020), and African Art Music
Kwabena Nketia (1921-2019)
The seminal African music scholar Dr. Kwabena Nketia of Ghana had a close relationship with Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah. Dr. Kwabena Nketia was Africa's foremost music scholar before his death in 2019. He was an accomplished ethnomusicologist, linguist, musician, poet, and Pan-Africanist, creating over 200 academic publications, and 40 instrumental and choral works. Nkrumah's trust for Nketia's work was so strong that with only a bachelor's degree, he invited Nketia "to be a foundation fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959” as one of twenty foremost Ghanaian scholars. Nkrumah also made Nketia the first African director of the Institute of African Studies in 1965, "a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary institute with the mandate to conduct research into all aspects of the arts and the social sciences in Africa."
Nketia was an African ethnomusicologist and linguist rooted in both his upbringing in Ghana's Akan culture and academic study in the West. Both influenced his African art music compositions and his academic publications. Although Nketia did study at the University of London (1944-1952), Columbia University (1958-early 60s), the Juilliard School (1958-early 60s) and many other institutions, it was in Ghana where he was formed as an Akan man. Indeed, it was in Akuapem-Akropong at the Presbyterian Training College "that Nketia studied in his formative years from 1937-1941 and where he was later appointed to teach music and Twi language."
These influences guided Nketia's academic work. His Funeral Dirges of the Akan People (1955, reprinted 1974), African Music in Ghana (1965), "The Linguistic Aspect of Style in African Languages" (1972), Norton's The Music of Africa (1974), and Ethnomusicology and African Music: Modes of Inquiry and Interpretation (2005) represent only a few examples of his prolific production. They also guided his African art music compositions, such as his instrumental works Volta Fantasy (1961), Owora (1961), and Dagarti Work Song (1961), as well as such other choral and vocal works as Monna N'Ase, Adanse Kronkron, Obarima Nifahene, and Yiadom Heneba.
Akin Euba (1935-2020)
Akin Euba is also an example of someone benefitting from Pan-Africanism. He earned his PhD in ethnomusicology in 1974 under Kwabena Nketia at the University of Ghana, Legon for his dissertation Dundun Music of the Yoruba. Dr. Akin Euba was another seminal African music scholar; he was a composer, musicologist, and pianist. As Euba started taking piano lessons in 1943 at the age of eight with his father in Lagos, he was steeped in Nigeria's Yoruba culture. Thus, his upbringing models those of other African art music composers.
Euba went on to study at Trinity College of Music, London (1952-7), University of California, Los Angeles (1965-66), and at the University of Ghana, Legon (1967-74). Euba's studies led him to develop the term 'African art music' as "a form of music [that is] universal to all Africa [… and that] in order to be truly African must use the stylistic and instrumental materials of African music or, at least, a preponderance of them." This analysis was based on Euba’s reflections on his scholarly development abroad, as well as on his time as Head of Music at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (1957-62). He also developed the terms 'African pianism', 'intercultural music', and 'creative ethnomusicology' during his successful academic and musical career.
Although much of Euba's contributions to African art music and the music academy have yet to be explored, his theories influenced his own academic works, notably Essays on Music in Africa (1989) and J. H. Kwabena Nketia: Bridging Musicology and Composition: A Study in Creative Musicology (2014). His theories also heavily influenced his musical works, as exemplified by Six Yoruba Songs (1959), Two Yoruba Folk Songs (1959), The Wanderer (1960), Igi Nla So (1963), Scenes from Traditional Life (1970), Chaka: An Opera in Two Chants (1977), FESTAC 77 Anthem (1977), and many others.
Conclusions
Both Kwabena Nketia and Akin Euba benefitted from a Pan-Africanism that established them and other African scholars as equal global citizens and not lesser colonial subjects, rendering their perspectives as valid and paving the way for their music and research. Without Pan-Africanism, neither Nketia nor Euba would have been free to study and theorize the perspectives that have contributed to the concept of an African art music.
For example, Nketia's theorization of the 6/8-time signature (as opposed to the 2/4-time signature with triplets) as a better visual indicator of the rhythmic pulse which undergirds many traditional African musics is an important contribution to African music transcription. This is equally true for Euba's development of African art music, or that of African pianism that is characterized by:
- "thematic repetition,
- direct borrowings of thematic material (rhythmic and/or tonal) from African traditional sources, [and]
- the use of rhythmic and/or tonal motifs which, although not borrowed from specific traditional sources, are based on traditional idioms and percussive treatment of the piano."
Neither of these intellectual developments would have been respected without the advancements of Pan-Africanism that gave Afro/Afro-Diasporic peoples a global voice. Ultimately, we should remember that Pan-Africanism helped African music scholars to develop as scholars and musicians, to be recognized for their scholarly and music contributions, and to be given opportunities for their future studies. The advancement of African art music is directly connected to key events and figures in the African independence movement that were inspired by Pan-Africanism. The same spirit of Pan-Africanism continues to support the study of African music among African music scholars today.
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