Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Pan-African Resonance: Music, Migration, and Everyday Practice in London and Accra

Pan-African Resonance: Music, Migration, and Everyday Practice in London and Accra

Okuda, Alison

Hardcover

Series: New African Histories

General Racism & Ethnic StudiesImmigration & RefugeesWorld Music

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0821427008
ISBN13: 9780821427002
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: Jul 23 2026
Pages: 264
Weight: 1.71
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.20
Language: English

As African and Caribbean nations gained independence from Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, many young musicians, students, and professionals crossed the Atlantic in search of new opportunities and built vibrant communities. Pan-African Resonance: Music, Migration, and Everyday Practice in London and Accra traces these journeys from Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Barbados, and Guyana, exploring how migrants practiced pan-Africanism through music across continents and generations. Drawing on musical recordings, newspapers, oral histories, and government documents from six countries, Alison Okuda demonstrates that pan-African solidarity thrived through the everyday creation and enjoyment of popular music. The book unfolds in two parts. Starting in the 1950s, it examines how Ghanaian highlife and Trinidadian calypso brought together musicians and young members of the independence generation, first in London and later in Accra. Even amid cultural tensions, Ghanaian and Caribbean communities expressed aspirations for freedom and unity in nightclubs, recording studios, private homes, and public streets. Before Ghana's 1966 coup d'état, Ghanaians and diasporic Africans collaborated to shape an independent African-Atlantic world. Although the coup disrupted formal Pan-Africanist organizing, in the second part of the book Okuda shows that in the 1970s a new generation sustained dynamic networks of solidarity through highlife, reggae, and other popular styles--heard in recordings, radio broadcasts, live performances, and community events. Influenced by generational change and musical fluidity, African diasporic unity has remained central to popular music, migration, and politics in Ghana and the wider African-Atlantic world into the twenty-first century. Offering a rich interdisciplinary approach, Pan-African Resonance will appeal to readers interested in popular culture, transnational history, diaspora studies, and modern African history.

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