Early modern courts employed musical spectacle, instruments and ceremonial practices as displays of agency, identity, power, and conspicuous consumption, and the royal court of the kingdom of Kongo was no exception. Yet detailed research on indigenous musical practices in early modern West-Central Africa is still scarce in ethnomusicological studies. Many challenges disrupt the study of early modern African music due to problems with traditional methodologies limited by Western paradigms, traditional academic disciplinary orientations, the nature of sources available, and disciplinary conventions that largely privilege written evidence and sources emanating from the elites and powerful, while casting suspicion on oral histories and traditions of knowledge that emerge ‘from below’. Drawing on new 16^th- and 17^th-century documentary narratives containing both textual descriptions and illustrations, together with local oral traditions, this paper reconstructs early modern indigenous Kongo musical practices in the wider context of Kikongo spirituality, social hierarchies, political power, and cultural identity in Afro-European encounters. It provides significant new insights into local representations of Black performance and their articulations of local power dynamics and Kongo worldviews that transform our understanding of early West-Central African music, spectacle, and cultural representation, musical encounters with foreign powers outside of a colonial context, and their substantial contributions to the multifaceted identities of the early modern musical world. By excavating these African voices in the colonial archive that holds a plurality of voices, we can direct a decolonial lens that opens the possibility for more nuanced counter-hegemonic interpretations of musical production in the early modern African world.

In 1971, French producer Michel Bernholc remixed field recordings of ngoma drumming from Burundi, to create a dance track called “Burundi Black.” Soon, this rhythm was heard in hits like Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll” (1972), and Joni Mitchell’s electronic experiment, “Jungle Line” (1975). Two British post-punk bands, Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow, took the “Burundi Beat” to the top of the charts in the early 1980s, paired with a look dubbed “The New Romantic,” combining feathers and warpaint with pirate shirts and military jackets. Considering the horrors of genocide occurring in Burundi during these years, this cultural appropriation was arguably ghoulish, yet the unlikely popularity of Burundi drumming ushered in an era of fascination with African music that peaked in 1986 with Paul Simon’s Graceland. The first WOMAD (World of Music and Dance) Festival in 1982 featured The Royal Drummers of Burundi, a group from the capital city of Gitega who capitalized on their music’s notoriety, recording three albums, and touring the world as musical ambassadors of their culture and pioneers in the “Global Pop” circuit. This paper will explore how pop music acts in the 1970s and 80s used signifiers of the “tribal” to convey sympathy for the colonized, while depending on colonial hegemony for their power. I draw attention to places where unequal power structures exploited communities and cultures ravaged by colonialism, while also noting ways that those communities counter-appropriated the culture of the colonizers to reclaim power for themselves.

This paper examines the reform of the Miao lusheng, a traditional reed instrument that plays a central role in the music and cultural identity of the Miao ethnic group in southwest China. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and a historical analysis of state policies, the paper explores the state's ideology and discourse behind the lusheng reforms, the power dynamics between the state and the Miao, and the ways in which Miao musical elites participated in these reforms to negotiate ethnic identity and contribute to the shaping of national musical modernity. It argues that, in the process of constructing a modern national identity, the state imposed European musical principles, such as the twelve-tone equal temperament, onto traditional instruments. This approach, which positions Western music as the standard of modernization, emerged from the colonial modernity of the twentieth century. In response, Miao musicians actively engaged in the reform to redefine Miao music and secure a voice in the development of China’s modern soundscape. By situating the lusheng within the broader context of national music reform, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions on state-minority relations and the intersection of music modernization and state building in China.

The European Early Music movement has flourished since at least the mid-20th century, gaining widespread popularity in the United States and Europe through numerous festivals, educational programs, and active practitioners. In contrast, a similar movement for early Ottoman/Turkish music, despite efforts beginning in Turkey in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has not been able to establish itself. One of the most notable efforts in this vein was made by the Bezmara ensemble, which emerged in the early 1990s attempting to mirror the European model, particularly in the reconstruction of period instruments and performance practices. However, despite these and other similar efforts, a lasting early Ottoman/Turkish music movement never took root. While classical Ottoman/Turkish music has a rich history, with sources dating back to at least the 17th century, the movement’s failure to gain traction is puzzling. This paper will analyze the potential sociological, musical and cultural reasons behind the failure to establish an early Ottoman music movement in Turkey while including interviews with key practitioners of both European early music and classical Ottoman/Turkish music. As a result, this paper aims to uncover why the early Ottoman/Turkish music movement, despite its potential, failed to establish itself in Turkey, while early music has thrived in Europe and the U.S.