Diaspora

Question 1

What does Sathima Bea Benjamin’s background show?

Answer 1

• Importance of the city for South Africans
• Jazz was a means of escaping apartheid
• 1950s had been time of promise, but apartheid 1960s ended this
• Move to NYC diaspora

Question 2

How did New York enact a sense of belonging for SBB?

Answer 2

• NYC was a haven for jazz musicians to travel to
• Community of contemporary and former musicians
• E.g. Duke Ellington (she’d known him before) gave her personal connection with city and community: album Sathima Sings Ellington
• Jazz enacts a parallel with NYC – both music and diaspora need improvisation to survive
• Meditation in motion: meditative practice in moving around and engaging with the city

Question 3

What role does the diaspora have in NYC?

Answer 3

• 2 roles: physical place where you are and memory of places been
• ‘Home within’ – only in NYC did Benjamin’s memories of South Africa become established in sound recordings
• Record label, Ekapa (zulu for ‘from the cape’) allowed her to travel musically
• Studio visits allowed her to ‘keep the spirit alive’ because she spent so much time at home with her children

Question 4

Give 2 examples of SBB’s music that showcases musical travel:

Answer 4

• Dedications (1982) – comprised of many old music hall tunes she recalled hearing growing up, not South African but ended up being foreign to the Americans, whom she had to teach the tunes to.
• Cape Town Love (1999) – went back to Cape Town and recorded with old friends, also insisting on spontaneity in studio, demonstrating ‘southern touch’

Question 5

What is the background of Murid communities in Senegal?

Answer 5

• Pilgrimage to TOuba where their founder Amadu Bamba Mbacke was divinely led
• Travel becomes sacred when end goal is place of spiritual significance
• Touba = bliss/felicity
• Poems written in Arabic

Question 6

What are the sonic layers of pilgrimage in Senegal?

Answer 6

• Copious singing of Qasa’id poetry
• Journey and singing become part of ritual
• Crowds with radios, intense saturation of sound

Question 7

How do diasporic murid communities make the pilgrimage?

Answer 7

• Enacted from their homes, using sung poetry as means of connecting to homeland
• Qasa’id music permeates Senegalese culture, in popular music and international recordings
• Sense of belonging through song
• Day of pilgrimage takes place on anniversary of Bamba’s deportation to Gabon by the French
• Exile seen as means of spiritual elevation

Question 8

Describe the process of singing poetry

Answer 8

• Traced back to Bamba and his singers
• Diasporic communities re-enact the first performance
• Kureels (disciples) stood in a circle around Bamba (so Murids do the same)
• Solo tunes often improvised