Dueling Bands and Good Girls: Gender and Music in Luanda's musseques, 1961-1974

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Date
2004
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African Studies Center, Boston University
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between gender and the musical production of nation in Luanda, Angola’s musseques (urban shantytowns). Urban Africans took advantage of reforms in colonial policy that followed the outbreak of anti-colonial struggle in 1961 to improve their daily lives and create new cultural spaces and practices. The production of semba, a local form of urban popular music, was at the forefront of this process. While men and women both attended clubs, men were overwhelmingly the producers of music and this gendered dynamic of musical production marked a shift in the involvement of women as cultural producers at this important moment when music and nation became intertwined.
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Keywords
Luanda, Angola, music, popular music, gender, culture, urban poor
Citation
"Dueling Bands and Good Girls: Gender and Music in Luanda's musseques, 1961-74." International Journal of African Historical Studies, 37.2 (2004): 255-88.
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This material is the copyright of the International Journal of African Historical Studies, African Studies Center, Boston University.
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Article