Olaniyan has given us a profound and beautifully integrated book
which culminates in a persuasive interpretation of the relationship between Fela's
apparently incompatible presentational selves... ...The book's accessible and
evocative prose is in itself a kind of homage to Fela's continual ability to seduce
and astonish... This is such an attractive book you feel like... ransacking your
collection for Fela tapes. -- Karin Barber ... an
indispensable companion to Fela's music and a rich source of information for studies
in modern African popular music. -- Akin Euba Arrest the
Music! is a lively musical study of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, one of Africa's most
recognizable, popular, and controversial musicians. The flamboyant originator of the
Afrobeat sound and self-proclaimed voice of the voiceless, Fela used
music, sharp-tongued lyrics, and derisive humor to challenge the shortcomings of
Nigerian and postcolonial African states. Looking at the social context,
instrumentation, lyrics, visual art, people, and organizations through which Fela
produced his music, Tejumola Olaniyan offers a wider, more suggestive perspective on
Fela and his impact on listeners in all parts of the world.
Placing Fela front and center, Olaniyan underscores important
social issues such as authenticity, racial and cultural identity, the relationship
of popular culture to radical politics, and the meaning of postcolonialism,
nationalism, and globalism in contemporary Africa. Readers interested in music,
culture, society, and politics, whether or not they know Fela and his music, will
find this work invaluable for understanding the career of an African superstar and
the politics of popular culture in contemporary Africa. African
Expressive Cultures -- Patrick McNaughton, general editor
Cartoonists make us laugh-and think-by caricaturing daily events and politics. The essays, interviews, and cartoons presented in this innovative book vividly demonstrate the rich diversity of ...cartooning across Africa and highlight issues facing its cartoonists today, such as sociopolitical trends, censorship, and use of new technologies. Celebrated African cartoonists including Zapiro of South Africa, Gado of Kenya, and Asukwo of Nigeria join top scholars and a new generation of scholar-cartoonists from the fields of literature, comic studies and fine arts, animation studies, social sciences, and history to take the analysis of African cartooning forward.Taking African Cartoons Seriouslypresents critical thematic studies to chart new approaches to how African cartoonists trade in fun, irony, and satire. The book brings together the traditional press editorial cartoon with rapidly diverging subgenres of the art in the graphic novel and animation, and applications on social media. Interviews with bold and successful cartoonists provide insights into their work, their humor, and the dilemmas they face. This book will delight and inform readers from all backgrounds, providing a highly readable and visual introduction to key cartoonists and styles, as well as critical engagement with current themes to show where African political cartooning is going and why.
How has the state impacted culture and cultural production in Africa? How has culture challenged and transformed the state and our understandings of its nature, functions, and legitimacy? Compelled ...by complex realities on the ground as well as interdisciplinary scholarly debates on the state-culture dynamic, senior scholars and emerging voices examine the intersections of the state, culture, and politics in postcolonial Africa in this lively and wide-ranging volume. The coverage here is continental and topics include literature, politics, philosophy, music, religion, theatre, film, television, sports, child trafficking, journalism, city planning, and architecture. Together, the essays provide an energetic and nuanced portrait of the cultural forms of politics and the political forms of culture in contemporary Africa.
Abiola Irele's universal distinction as an accomplished literary scholar has had the unintended effect of occluding his important scholarly engagements with the sociopolitical genre known as the ...postcolonial state in Africa. That he was not a self-declared radical like many colleagues around him helped the occlusion. And then, the engagements came at critical moments rather than regularly. They were infrequent but always unfailingly substantive and foundational when they came, such that we must now wonder if it is not time to do the hard work of configuring them into the mainstream of Irele's more literary-humanistic work. This article attempts that configuration, and underscores Irele's contributions to the social science of the state in Africa.
There is the saying out there that there is the tenure book, and there is the love book. The love book is not necessarily the book that follows the tenure book, so chronology is not the critical ...factor here. The love book is that book in which it is clearly manifest— both in its content and form—the free, energetic, uncoerced, and pleasurable psychic investment of the author. In the case of Adeeko’s book, you see that pleasure in the wealth and diversity of the archive he has drawn from, from Ifa divination to oriki to prose fiction to sartorial fashion and tabloid photography. The pleasure is also seen in the patient, absolutely unhurried, and overly detailed mode of explication, systematically unfurling arguments, citing examples, making comparisons, and teasing out criticisms— mostly in the genteel ironic mode. A book has tempo too, and the tempo of this book is leisurely, majestic. I will return to this point soon.
Critical Masters: The Series Olaniyan, Tejumola
Journal of the African Literature Association,
20/1/2/, Volume:
12, Issue:
1
Journal Article
This inaugural issue of Critical Masters: The Series is devoted to Biodun Jeyifo, the Nigeria-born scholar, activist, journalist, and radical intellectual. Educated at the University of Ibadan and ...New York University, BJ, as he is universally known and addressed, is currently professor of Comparative Literature and African and African-American Studies at Harvard University.
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