Decolonizing stylistic awareness in higher education contemporary commercial music training: Exploring performer–practitioner experiences through an Africentric approach

This research explores decolonization within higher education contemporary commercial music (CCM) training. It considers how stylistic awareness can be developed in practice, using an Africentric theoretical approach, ensuring voices with the most cultural insight in CCM are elevated. Africentric methodology guides triangulated methods, comprising literature review, document analysis and interviews. Findings indicate stylistic awareness is difficult to objectively measure, despite being vital for culturally viable and creative CCM performance. Cultivating stylistic awareness relies on influences from individuals’ past and present, through individual and community-based experiences. Pedagogical strategies for student-led, decolonized exploration of stylistic awareness are presented and further areas for research are outlined.