Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T06:21:08.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language ideology and kadongo kamu flow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2016

David Pier
David Pier*
Affiliation:
College of Arts and Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kadongo kamu is a Ugandan guitar-based genre recognisable by its dense storytelling lyrics in Luganda language. This article offers a close analysis of kadongo kamu musical style, focusing on the interface between speech rhythm and musical rhythm. The style's poetic-musical ‘flow’ to be structurally analysed is interpreted with reference to a historically evolved language ideology which construes Luganda to be exceptionally ‘rich’ and ‘deep’. I show how specific musical techniques are used to foreground aspects of Luganda that speakers prize as elegant and learned. This musical artistry enhances listeners’ impressions of the proverb-rich ‘deep Luganda’ poetry for which kadongo kamu singers are famous.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , October 2016 , pp. 360 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Agawu, K. 1987. ‘The rhythmic structure of West African music’, Journal of Musicology, 5/3, pp. 400–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashton, E.O. 1954. A Luganda Grammar (London, Longmans, Green).Google Scholar
Barrett-Gaines, K. (ed.) 2012. One Little Guitar: The Words of Paul Job Kafeero (Kampala, Fountain).Google Scholar
Barz, G. 2006. Singing for Life: HIV/AIDS and Music in Uganda (New York, Routledge).Google Scholar
Baumann, G., and Briggs, C.L. 2003. ‘Introduction’, in Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality, ed. Baumann, G. and Briggs, C. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clements, G.N. 1986. ‘Compensatory lengthening and consonant gemination in Luganda’, in Studies in Compensatory Lengthening, ed. Wetzel, L. and Sezer, E. (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter), pp. 37–77.Google Scholar
Cooke, P. and Kasule, S. 1999. ‘The musical scene in Uganda: views from without and within’, African Music, 7/4, pp. 6–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, A., and Micklem, J. 1999. ‘Ennanga harp songs of Buganda: Temutewo Mukasa's “Gganga Alula”’, African Music, 7/4, pp. 47–65.Google Scholar
Fallers, L.A. 1961. ‘Ideology and culture in Uganda nationalism’, American Anthropologist, 63/4, pp. 677–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, H.B. 1984. Mission, Church, and State in a Colonial Setting: Uganda, 1890–1925 (London, Heinemann).Google Scholar
Hyman, L.M. and Katamba, F.X. 1999. ‘The syllable in Luganda phonology and morphology’, in The Syllable: Views and Facts, ed. van der Hulst, H. and Ritter, N. A. (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter), pp. 349–416.Google Scholar
Kasule, S. 1998. ‘Popular performance and the construction of social reality in post-Amin Uganda’, Journal of Popular Culture, 32/2, pp. 39–58.Google Scholar
Kiyimba, A. 2012. ‘Music and Islam in Uganda: diverse opinions and practices’, in Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond, ed. Nannyonga-Tamusuza, S. and Solomon, T. (Kampala, Fountain), pp. 93–109.Google Scholar
Krims, A. 2000. Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kubik, G. 1960. ‘The structure of Kiganda xylophone music’, African Music, 2/3, pp. 6–30.Google Scholar
Kubik, G. 1981. ‘Neo-traditional popular music in East Africa since 1945’, Popular Music, 1, pp. 83–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kubik, G. 2010. Theory of African Music, Volume 2 (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Kyagambiddwa, J. 1955. African Music from the Source of the Nile (London, Praeger).Google Scholar
Makubuya, J. 2000. ‘“Endingidi” (tube fiddle) of Uganda: its adaptation and significance among the Baganda’, Galpin Society Journal, 53, pp. 140–55.Google Scholar
Manuel, P. 1990. Popular Musics of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey (New York, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Middleton, R. 1983. ‘“Play It Again Sam”: some notes on the productivity of repetition in popular music’, Popular Music, 3, pp. 235–70.Google Scholar
Mizumura, M. 2015. The Fall of Language in the Age of English, transl. Yoshihara, M. (New York, Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Mugambi, H.N. 1994. ‘Intersections: gender, orality, text, and female space in contemporary Kiganda radio songs’, Research in African Literatures, 25/3, pp. 47–70.Google Scholar
Mugambi, H.N. 2014. ‘From story to song: gender, nationhood, and the migratory text’, in Gendered Encounters: Challenging Cultural Boundaries and Social Hierarchies, ed. Grosz-Ngate, M. and Kokole, O. (New York, Routledge), pp. 205–22.Google Scholar
Nannyonga-Tamusuza, S. 2002. ‘Gender, ethnicity, and politics in Kadongo-Kamu music of Uganda: analysing the song Kayanda’, in Playing with Identities in Contemporary Music in Africa, ed. Palmberg, M. and Kirkegaard, A. (Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet), pp. 134–48.Google Scholar
Pier, D. 2015. Ugandan Music in the Marketing Era: The Branded Arena (New York, Palgrave).Google Scholar
Plageman, N. 2013. Highlife Saturday Night: Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press).Google Scholar
Ranger, T. 1983. ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 211–62.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, B.B., Woolard, K.A., and Kroskrity, P.V. (eds.) 1998. Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory (New York, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Speke, J.H. 1868. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (New York, Harper).Google Scholar
Tucker, A.N. 1962. ‘The syllable in Luganda: a prosodic approach’, Journal of African Languages, 1/2, pp. 122–66.Google Scholar
Van Dam, T. 1954. ‘The influence of West African songs of derision in the New World’, African Music, 1/1, pp. 53–6.Google Scholar
Villepastour, A. 2010. Ancient Text Messages of the Yorùbá Bàtá Drum (Aldershot, Ashgate).Google Scholar
Waterman, C. 1990. Jùjú: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Waterman, R.A. 1952. ‘African influence on the music of the Americas’, in Acculturation in the Americas, ed. Tax, S. (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press), pp. 81–94.Google Scholar
Woolard, K.A. 1998. ‘Introduction: language ideology as a field of inquiry’, in Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, ed. Schieffelin, B., Woolard, K., and Kroskity, P. (New York, Oxford University Press), pp. 3–47.Google Scholar
Kabanda, B. Olugendo. Womad Select. 1999 Google Scholar
Kabanda, B. Olugendo. Womad Select. 1999 Google Scholar