West African Pop Roots [Hardcover]

John Collins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 1992

Having spent more than twenty years as a performer, manager, and producer of African music, John Collins brings an insider's perspective and a personal passion to this account of popular music in West Africa. He explores the roots of the various styles and genres and the 'feedback' of black music adapted to the New World and returning to Africa to reinfluence its origins. Collins celebrates the personalities and sounds of today's music, its influence on an international audience, the African music business, and the cross-fertilization between African music and that of other cultures. Interspersed with his rich descriptions and historical narratives are colorful biographical sketches of important African musicians along with a wealth of rare photographs of individuals and bands.With the intention of exposing 'the inner driving forces of popular music in Africa', Collins delves into the history of African music, traces its evolution throughout the twentieth century, and explores the current 'world beat' explosion. He demonstrates that the enormous energy generated by African music is in part a result of its polyrhytmic nature and rhythmic spacing, 'the hot sounds and the cool space'. He describes the complexities of African rhythms: the cross-beats, the inside rhythm, the varying tempo, the positive and negative sound, and the rhythmic dialogue. 'African music', Collins observes, 'is a gestalt of opposites that unifies the up and down-beat, head and feet, the audience and performer, into the communion of the beat...There is no separation, only universal 'togetherness"."West African Pop Roots" treats the significant personalities and inside stories of many of its greatest stars, including Manu Dibango with Soul Makossa, E.T. Mensah, Victor Uwaifo, Fela, Youssou N'Dour, and Sonny Okosun, among others. Collins describes the global research for the African roots of pop, which has attracted such Western performers as Ginger Baker, Paul McCartney, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, David Byrne, and many others. The author describes Africa's world-wide influence on music and dance as 'the nearest thing we have in the twentieth century to a global folk music'. Author note: John Collins is manager of the Bokoor Recording Studio (Ghana), acting Chairman of the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation, and is on the Ghanaian National Folklore-Copyright Administration Board. The author of several books and numerous articles about African music, he is a doctoral candidate at State University of New York at Buffalo.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A]n important resource for anyone interested in the historical development of popular music... Collins brings to light the contexts, the sources, the crossovers and the evolution of the music in a highly readable way. This is...a book full of life and unique 'insider' insight into African society and music on all levels." oPopular Music "A tremendous resource, not only for those outside of Africa who are trying to understand the source of Afro pop but also for Africans themselves..." oGeorge Collinet, "Afro Pop Worldwide," National Public Radio

From the Publisher

"...the nearest thing we have in the twentieth century to a global folk music." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 349 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press; Rev Sub edition (June 3, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877227934
• ISBN-13: 978-0877227939
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,065,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great guy, great book, November 8, 2000

By 

m_noland "m_noland" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: West African Pop Roots (Hardcover)

A little bio: John Collins' British father was a professor at the University of Ghana, where John spent most of his youth and developed his interest in music. At some point John studied medicine (came in helpful the night he had to deliver his nephew), but gave it up to be a musician/recording engineer/and eventually professor of music and the University of Ghana (he also had a bit part in Fela's attempted movie, but that's another story). He still lives at Bokor House outside Accra, and still plays in a band.

Anyway, between being a working musician, a recording engineer, and an archivist, he met/interviewed/worked with virtually everybody who was anybody in West African popular music from early highlife bandleaders like E.T. Mensah to the late Fela Kuti.

The book consists largely of short chapters about individual performers, grouped roughly according to chronology and geography. From this organization, one gets a sense of thematic developments and forces in the musicians' lives, but much of the material is anecdotal, letting the performers speak for themselves. And what anecdotes they are. The chapter on Fela alone is worth the price of the book, though to hear John relate it, he didn't tell half of the story.