Breakout: Profiles in African Rhythm

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Chronicling musical journeys amid Africa's transformation.

If you're interested in the crossroads of culture, history, and music, "Breakout" is an insightful pick. It offers a window into the lives of African musicians navigating the complexities of international success while preserving their artistic authenticity. Their personal stories interweave with the socio-political landscape of Africa, shedding light on broader themes of cultural identity and the global music scene.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

Breakout: Profiles in African Rhythm

Regular price $13.90
Unit price
per
Compare to estimated retail price: S$42.41  
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ISBN: 9780226774060
Authors: Gary Stewart
Date of Publication: 1992-06-01
Format: Paperback
Related Collections: Music, History, Biographies & Memoirs
Goodreads rating: 4.13
(rated by 8 readers)

Description

Based on exclusive interviews, Breakout tells the often riveting personal stories of fourteen popular musicians—some well known, others not—from Zaire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. The first book on African pop music to look closely at the lives of the musicians themselves, Breakout deals with four African musical genres: soukous, highlife, afro-beat, and palm wine. Amid Africa's deepening economic and political crises of the last two decades, African musicians who developed these genres faced the need to cross cultural boundaries, or "break out," and achieve a hit in the international marketplace. Challenging conventional assumptions, Gary Stewart demonstrates for the first time the true dimensions of this struggle to create music that will qualify as both an authentic cultural expression and an export commodity. From accounts of the outrageous Fela, who snipes at African leaders and recounts his days with Isis in ancient Egypt, to S. E. Rogie, who lurches from the pinnacle of stardom in West Africa to delivering pizzas in California, to Olatunji, who finds new life with the Grateful Dead, these are the stories of Africans straddling traditional life and an encroaching modernity—and also the stories of third world musicians surmounting political and economic chaos at home and carrying their music to a world dominated by Western cultural and economic power.
 

Chronicling musical journeys amid Africa's transformation.

If you're interested in the crossroads of culture, history, and music, "Breakout" is an insightful pick. It offers a window into the lives of African musicians navigating the complexities of international success while preserving their artistic authenticity. Their personal stories interweave with the socio-political landscape of Africa, shedding light on broader themes of cultural identity and the global music scene.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.