Music, "Movement and Displacement" : Black Musical Innovations,1920s-1960s

Abstract

Music, ‘Movement and Displacement’: Black Musical Innovations, 1920s-1960s, is an investigation of the emergence of music genres and performance styles in urban Black South Africa from the 1920s to the 1960s. The research uses Veit Erlmann’s concept of “movement and displacement” in examining how urban music and performance styles were shaped in a rapidly changing urban environment such as Johannesburg. Furthermore, the research also focuses on the creation of an urban consciousness which was shaped by the cultural heterogeneity of Black townships, which in turn both shaped music and was shaped by music, among other factors. This urban consciousness was also the outcome of “movement and displacement” as a result of internal migrations, especially rural to urban, as well as intellectual and cultural exchanges between the urban Black community and international cultural and intellectual currents, particularly from the United States. The dissertation argues that urban Black culture, music, and performance styles of the period, 1920s to 1960s were significantly shaped by movement and displacement both within South Africa and outside.