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Recording Postcolonial Nationhood: Islam and Popular Music in Senegal

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2017, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Music History and Literature (Fine Arts).
Using Senegal's Islam-infused popular music as lens, this dissertation examines the ways in which modern Senegalese singers have used musical lyricism and performance to celebrate collective Muslim identities, but also to negotiate a pan-ethnic and trans-religious discourse of national unity. Focusing on mbalax and jolof rap as the country's signature music genres, the dissertation proposes that contemporary Senegalese singers blend indigenous verbal art with modern poetry to create a new musical language aimed for bridging over religious and ethnic marginalities. By codeswitching the Wolof language with French, Arabic, and other local languages, I suggest that this musical language embodies a culture politics whereby the pan-ethnic national is prioritized over the ethnic. To put it differently, I propose that the lyrics and performances of mbalax and jolof rap artists foreground symbols of a collective Senegalese national identity, as well as a response to the postcolonial challenges of national integration. Grounded in the theories of nationhood, modernity, and cosmopolitanism, this dissertation argues that popular music, as a cultural element, can have impact on the grassroots processes of nation building, especially in a postcolonial context. Approaching Senegal's mbalax and jolof rap musics as such, I study both genres as collective (entertainment) symbols through which artists seek to reconcile the Islamic with the non-Islamic, the local with the foreign, with a tendency to blur local ethnic boundaries. Along these lines, I have studied mbalax and jolof rap as two distinct - but dialogically related - musical forms around which popular musicians construct and circulate narratives of collective identity, pluralism, and national solidarity. In addition, I analyze mbalax and jolof rap as synthetic musics, because the compositions of both blend local elements with foreign imports. I suggest that this creative synthesis is what defines Senegal's musical modernity and constitutes the artistic representation of a hybridized Senegalese postcolonial identity marked by an encounter between local black culture, Islam, and Western influence.
Andrea Frohne, PhD (Committee Chair)
Garrett Field, PhD (Committee Member)
Steve Howard, PhD (Committee Member)
Loren Lybarger, PhD (Committee Member)
287 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Camara, S. (2017). Recording Postcolonial Nationhood: Islam and Popular Music in Senegal [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1510780384221502

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Camara, Samba. Recording Postcolonial Nationhood: Islam and Popular Music in Senegal. 2017. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1510780384221502.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Camara, Samba. "Recording Postcolonial Nationhood: Islam and Popular Music in Senegal." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1510780384221502

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)