Guitar Playing and Representation in the Changing Locations of New York City’s African Music Scene

Abstract

For the past decade, a handful of African guitarists and their groups have formed the basis of the African music scene in New York City. They have performed in diasporic African contexts and cosmopolitan, mostly non- African, settings drawing upon notions of difference that have greatly characterized various representations of African music. For these guitarists and their collaborators, difference and musical diversity have helped to comprise a shared aggregate of tendencies and resources that have informed their playing, performance practice, and compositional habits. As a participant-observer and researcher since 2005, I have discovered the extent to which these guitarists have appropriated different musical ideas and practices-African and non- African-making them their own. In this article, I examine the differences of aesthetics and musical conception that have informed guitar playing and representation in contrasting diasporic and cosmopolitan contexts. I aim to provide the reader with some insights concerning the varied forms of verbal and musical discourse that African guitarists have employed to represent African music in New York City. Lastly, I consider recent occurrences that might raise questions regarding the future of African jazz.