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CS92PROD
African Popular Music Performance

MUSC 444
Spring 2022
Section: 01  
This course may be repeated for credit.
Course Cluster and Certificates: African Studies, African Studies Minor

This course aims at bringing together students with diverse musical skills to explore the riches of African popular music (broadly defined to include a range of styles such as highlife, hiplife, hip-hop, dancehall, reggae, azonto, and gospel highlife) through performance. Popular music, first and foremost, is an urban genre. Its origins go back to the early 1900s when, as a result of European presence in the coastal areas of West Africa, and later spreading to other parts of the continent, new musical instruments, ideas, and imaginings became available. Today, popular music is the driving force of the music industry in Africa. Through intensive studio practice, reading, listening, viewing, and individual and group rehearsals, the goal of the course is twofold: to develop proficiency in African pop music performance; and to become familiar with the intellectual discourse on African popular music, its interactions with traditional African music, and its role in the formation of generational identities. The course is fundamentally performance-based; hence, enrollment is limited to skilled musicians with some proficiency in sound engineering/production, composition, singing, raps, guitar-playing, keyboard, drum sets, bass guitars, trumpets, trombones, and other melodic/harmonic, and percussion instruments. Midterm and end-of-semester projects will include group productions and public concerts, resulting in an album release featuring works by faculty and students.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA MUSC
Course Format: PerformanceGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (MUSC)
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available

Last Updated on DEC-06-2024
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