Afropop Worldwide, April 2009 Produced by Siddhartha Mitter. Follow link for audio. In the music of the French Antilles – the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe – you can hear influences that range from the traditional bèlè and gwo ka drumming of the islands’ rural communities, to European additions like polka and French chanson. But […]
Tag: afropop worldwide
The rise of the religious music industry in Kenya: Gospel from roots to rap
Afropop Worldwide, December 18, 2008 Produced by Siddhartha Mitter. Follow link for audio. Missionaries and nationalists rubbed shoulders in Kenya as early as 1906, when Kenya was a young, British colony. Christianity has long been closely allied with local, cultural expressions: however, it was only with the spread of radio in the 1940s that choral […]
Diaspora encounters: the Indo-Caribbean world
Afropop Worldwide, July 31, 2008 Produced by Siddhartha Mitter. Follow link for audio. Competition between communities of Indian and African descent has been a mainstay of politics and culture in the former British colonies of Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana. This rivalry plays out in institutions from the University of the West Indies to the […]
Singing for life: HIV/AIDS and music in Uganda
Afropop Worldwide, November 15, 2007 Produced by Siddhartha Mitter. Follow link for audio. In just fifteen years, Uganda lowered its HIV/AIDS infection rate from 30% to just 5%. The life-saving information was best channeled by grassroots theater groups, and especially, women’s choirs who turned health advice, sometimes blended with religion, into entertainment that could move […]
The hip-hop generation in Africa: Ghana and Ivory Coast
Afropop Worldwide, April 2007 Produced by Siddhartha Mitter. Follow link for audio. We explore the current pop music of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, two countries where elements of hip-hop and international pop music have grafted themselves onto local styles to create whole new genres-ones robust enough to not only take over the local youth culture […]
Siddhartha Mitter 