Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora

by Kay Kaufman Shelemay

Overview

A sweeping history of Ethiopian musicians during and following the 1974 Ethiopian revolution.

Sing and Sing On is the first study of the forced migration of musicians out of the Horn of Africa dating from the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, a political event that overthrew one of the world’s oldest monarchies and installed a brutal military regime. Musicians were among the first to depart the region, their lives shattered by revolutionary violence, curfews, and civil war. Reconstructing the memories of forced migration, Sing and Sing On traces the challenges musicians faced amidst revolutionary violence and the critical role they played in building communities abroad.

Drawing on the recollections of dozens of musicians, Sing and Sing On details personal, cultural, and economic hardships experienced by musicians who have resettled in new locales abroad. Kay Kaufman Shelemay highlights their many artistic and social initiatives and the ways they have offered inspiration and leadership within and beyond a rapidly growing Ethiopian American diaspora. While musicians held this role as sentinels in Ethiopian culture long before the revolution began, it has taken on new meanings and contours in the Ethiopian diaspora. The book details the ongoing creativity of these musicians while exploring the attraction of return to their Ethiopian homeland over the course of decades abroad. Ultimately, Shelemay shows that musicians are uniquely positioned to serve this sentinel role as both guardians and challengers of cultural heritage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226810164
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	01/18/2022
Series:	Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Kay Kaufman Shelemay is the G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of Music and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World and Let Jasmine Rain Down: Song and Remembrance among Syrian Jews, also published by the Press.

Table of Contents

List of Plates xi

List of Figures xiii

List of Tables xv

Editorial Policies xvii

Preface: Fundamentals. Toward a Concept of the Sentinel Musician xxi

Section I Frameworks

1 Thresholds. Ethnography, History Biography 3

2 Mobilities. People and Music in Motion 29

3 Senses. Ethiopian Sensory Thought and Practice 49

Section II Processes

4 Conflicts. Revolutionary Musical Lives 77

5 Movements. Pathways to Asylum 99

6 Communities. Places and Politics in Diaspora 121

Section III Transformations

7 Sounds. Performing Identity, Mobility, and the Ethiopian Sound 149

8 Signs. The Genealogy of Orchestra Ethiopia at Home and Abroad 171

9 Creativities. Musical Invention and Diasporic Challenges 204

10 Horizons. Rediscovering Heritage and Returning to Homeland 229

Afterword: Sentinel Musicians in Global Perspective 257

Acknowledgments 267

Appendix: An Overview of Ethiopian Diaspora Communities across the United States 277

Glossary 289

Notes 297

Discography 379

Interviews and Communications 385

Field Notes 389

Bibliography 391

Index 417

Editorial Reviews

“Sing and Sing On tells the powerful story of the role musicians have played in safeguarding Ethiopian identity and growing its cultural influence in the decades since the revolution. This is a compelling story that deserves to be told.”
 

Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye

"Sing and Sing On will be valuable to those studying Ethiopian culture and to ethnomusicology students, who will find in the book a clear example of applied ethnomusicology. . . . Recommended."

Choice

Shelemay’s deeply researched and sensitive survey of Ethiopia’s ‘sentinel musicians’ reveals the power and presence of music across time and space by profiling activist artists over continents and decades. This is a major contribution to mobility and diaspora studies as well as an eloquent guide to how resilient musicians can shape a scattered society through sound and purpose.”
 

Mark Slobin

When a senior ethnomusicologist writes about work that has extended over the course of a whole career, it is a gift since ethnography doesn’t often offer such historical depth. When this work has been in both a homeland and a diaspora with citizens of a country/region that has been particularly under duress, it is an even greater gift since it enables us to see how the role of musical performance responds and shapes social conditions across difficult times and multiple places.

Beverley Diamond

"A musically and academically engaging project, it's also an important account of personal human suffering, and the art and solidarity that rises out of it." 

Songlines

"Sing and Sing On tells the powerful story of the role musicians have played in safeguarding Ethiopian identity and growing its cultural influence in the decades since the revolution. This is a compelling story that deserves to be told."
--Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye

"When a senior ethnomusicologist writes about work that has extended over the course of a whole career, it is a gift since ethnography doesn't often offer such historical depth. When this work has been in both a homeland and a diaspora with citizens of a country/region that has been particularly under duress, it is an even greater gift since it enables us to see how the role of musical performance responds and shapes social conditions across difficult times and multiple places."--Beverley Diamond, Memorial University of Newfoundland

"Shelemay's deeply researched and sensitive survey of Ethiopia's 'sentinel musicians' reveals the power and presence of music across time and space by profiling activist artists over continents and decades. This is a major contribution to mobility and diaspora studies as well as an eloquent guide to how resilient musicians can shape a scattered society through sound and purpose."
--Mark Slobin, author of Folk Music: A Very Short Introduction

From the Publisher