Bamako Sounds
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    • Introduction study guide
    • Chapter 1 study guide
    • Chapter 2 study guide
    • Chapter 3 study guide
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    • Conclusion study guide
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ABOUT The book and author

Bamako Sounds: The Afropolitan Ethics of Malian Music


Drawing on years of ethnographic research with classically trained players of the kora (a twenty-one-string West African harp) as well as more contemporary, hip-hop influenced musicians and producers, Ryan Thomas Skinner analyzes how Bamako artists balance social imperatives with personal interests and global imaginations. Whether performed live on stage, broadcast on the radio, or shared over the Internet, music is a privileged mode of expression that suffuses Bamako’s urban soundscape. It animates professional projects, communicates cultural values, pronounces public piety, resounds in the marketplace, and quite literally performs the nation. Music, the artists who make it, and the audiences who interpret it thus represent a crucial means of articulating and disseminating the ethics and aesthetics of a varied and vital Afropolitanism, in Bamako and beyond.  

Ryan Thomas Skinner is Associate Professor of Music and African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University. He is the author and illustrator of a children’s book, Sidikiba’s Kora Lesson, and an accomplished kora player. 


CONTACT RYAN SKINNER:
email | skinner.176@osu.edu
phone | 614-292-9441
Picture
    Download the Introduction in PDF format

    Read the Satellite Magazine interview


    and the blog post, What is "Malian music?"

    Find Bamako Sounds on Facebook

    and on Twitter @perceivedspace

Web design: Madeleine Fix and Ryan Skinner 2015
  • Home
  • About
  • Media
    • Introduction media
    • Chapter 1 media
    • Chapter 2 media
    • Chapter 3 media
    • Chapter 4 media
    • Chapter 5 media
    • Chapter 6 media
  • Study guides
    • Introduction study guide
    • Chapter 1 study guide
    • Chapter 2 study guide
    • Chapter 3 study guide
    • Chapter 4 study guide
    • Chapter 5 study guide
    • Chapter 6 study guide
    • Conclusion study guide
  • Reviews
  • Calendar
  • Buy the book