Cool Stuff: Sub-Saharan Africa

 Time for another Cool Stuff Blog! This time, we're going to both Africa. A few quick parameters for  this week's blog topics:

  • All the rules from the last Cool Stuff blog are still in play--three separate lines of inquiry, two of which must be explicitly about a musical topic; each item needs to include a hefty paragraph (at the very least) of description/explanation; you need to let me know where you got your information from; 
  • Scope: You may go anywhere in Africa for your topics as long as you are South of the Sahara Desert. If you're just dying to dive into, say, Morocco or Egypt, don't worry--we'll consider those places when we get to Arabic music in a few weeks. 
  • More Scope: You can consider any music of sub-Saharan Africa that you like. It can be traditional, modern, vocal, instrumental, formal, informal, and from any part of sub-Saharan Africa that you like. Wondering what goes on in Madagascar? Go find out! Wondering if they have any aerophones? Go find out! Want to see what other kinds of drums they have? Go find out! Want to learn about the music of the BaAka people in Central Africa? Please, someone, go find out!
  • Yes, the original assignment on the Syllabus included the Blues, but I'm dropping that, since we'll be doing Big Blog: American Roots Music next week.
And, weirdly, I'm not going to put any sort of Cool Stuff post here of my own. As I got to exploring what I might post, I kept thinking, "Oh! But one of the folks in the class might be thinking to post that!" And so I'm going to leave it all up to y'all. Enjoy :-)

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