Events

Funaná is a music and dance practice that was created by the peasant population of the Cape Verdean island of Santiago in the post-slavery period of the late 19th century. Originating in the performances of button diatonic accordion and iron bar players in family and community sociabilities, it was outlawed by administrators and clerics during the final period of Portuguese colonialism. After Cape Verde's independence, the interest of young musicians in this marginal history motivated the creation of new popular music aesthetics. Although gradually accepted within the framework of an official Creole culture promoted by the state, funaná remained an iconic practice of a masculinity understood as "African". This book situates funaná in colonial and postcolonial social and political history. In particular it questions how this genre of music and dance was historically racialized and what legacies of this process persist in the present.