Whose Decolonization? Prospects for Decolonizing African Art Music

Abstract Although they date back to the 1960s—the decade of African independence—decolonization discourses have gained a new visibility in today’s academies and social media. Targets of decolonization include universities (and numerous practices within), archives, museums, political and economic systems, and individuals from previously colonized nations. Questions remain, however, about what, why, and how to decolonize. This article explores the prospects for decolonizing African art music, a repertoire formed from the twin forces of missionization and colonization. Eschewing a big-picture approach, the author focuses on samples of African choralism, African pianism, African opera, and African symphonism to show that the dividing lines between things “European” (often elided with “Western” and “colonial”) and things “African” are not always firmly drawn. So, although decolonization has been mobilized to signal virtue in the fight against racism, imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism, it remains a problematic discourse for African art music. While the formulation of comprehensive and progressive goals for an African renaissance lies well beyond the remit of the article, the author suggests that attending to power and to the power structures that sustain the uneven terrain we know today is a more urgent task than centering an underspecified “colonial” (along with its perpetrators, the continent’s historical oppressors) in our conversations.