"Remains of Ritual," Steven M. Friedson s second book on musical experience in African ritual, focuses on the Brekete/Gorovodu religion of the Ewe people. Friedson presents a multifaceted understanding of religious practice through a historical and ethnographic study of one of the dominant ritual sites on the southern coast of Ghana: a medicine shrine whose origins lie in the northern region of the country. Each chapter of this fascinating book considers a different aspect of ritual life, demonstrating throughout that none of them can be conceived of separately from their musicality in the...

At the heart of "The Republic of Love" are the voices of three musicians queer nightclub star Zeki Muren, "arabesk" originator Orhan Gencebay, and pop diva Sezen Aksu who collectively have dominated mass media in Turkey since the early 1950s. Their fame and ubiquity have made them national icons but, Martin Stokes here contends, they do not represent the official version of Turkish identity propagated by anthems or flags; instead they evoke a much more intimate and ambivalent conception of Turkishness.
Using these three singers as a lens, Stokes examines Turkey s repressive politics...

At the heart of The Republic of Love are the voices of three musicians queer nightclub star Zeki Muren, arabesk originator Orhan Gencebay, and pop diva Sezen Aksu who collectively have dominated mass media in Turkey since the early 1950s. Their fame and ubiquity have made them national icons but, Martin Stokes here contends, they do not represent the official version of Turkish identity propagated by anthems or flags; instead they evoke a much more intimate and ambivalent conception of Turkishness.
Using these three singers as a lens, Stokes examines Turkey s repressive...

In "Stambeli," Richard C. Jankowsky presents a vivid ethnographic account of the healing trance music created by the descendants of sub-Saharan slaves brought to Tunisia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Stambeli music calls upon an elaborate pantheon of sub-Saharan spirits and North African Muslim saints to heal humans through ritualized trance. Based on nearly two years of participation in the musical, ritual, and social worlds of stambeli musicians, Jankowsky s study explores the way the music evokes the cross-cultural, migratory past of its originators and their...

Taken together, these comprehensive volumes offer an authoritative account of the music of Africa. One of the most prominent experts on the subject, Gerhard Kubik draws on his extensive travels and three decades of study in many parts of the continent to compare and contrast a wealth of musical traditions from a range of cultures.

In the first volume, Kubik describes and examines xylophone playing in southern Uganda and harp music from the Central African Republic; compares multi-part singing from across the continent; and explores movement and sound in eastern Angola. And in the...

In West Java, Indonesia, all it takes is a woman s voice and a drum beat to make a man get up and dance. Every day, men there be they students, pedicab drivers, civil servants, or businessmen breach ordinary standards of decorum and succumb to the rhythm at village ceremonies, weddings, political rallies, and nightclubs. The music the men dance to varies from traditional gong ensembles to the contemporary pop known as "dangdut," but they consistently dance with great enthusiasm. In "Erotic Triangles," Henry Spiller draws on decades of ethnographic research to explore the reasons behind...