Angolanidade Revisited: Kuduro | norient.com 8 Oct 2021 03:40:08 Angolanidade Revisited: Kuduro by Stefanie Alisch, Nadine Siegert This article explores the role of Kuduro, the popular Angolan electronic music and dance style in the process of updating the national Angolan identity called angolanidade to the conditions of the new millennium. Angola has recently become an important player in the global economy due to its wealth of oil and diamonds, after having been in the news mainly because of the atrocities of an enduring civil war. Most of the country’s population lives in Luanda, a metropolis of about seven million inhabitants. In this both utopian and nightmarish urban setting one of the most intriguing musics of the African continent has been born: kuduro. In this article we explore the role of this popular Angolan electronic music and dance style in the process of updating the national Angolan identity called angolanidade to the conditions of the new millennium. French DJ Frédéric Galliano's CD-Albums Kuduro Sound System (produced in Luanda in 2005 and 2008, first with Angolan artists and singers like Dog Murras, Tony Amado, Zoca Zoca, Pai Diesel, Pinta Tirru and Gata AGressiva, and second with various underground artists) catapulted kuduro’s sound https://norient.com/academic/kuduro Page 1 of 18 Angolanidade Revisited: Kuduro | norient.com 8 Oct 2021 03:40:08 onto club dancefloors all over the world. Since then kuduro has been debated in the North American and European music press and blogosphere. This field of discourse is not primarily concerned with Angolan issues. Here, kuduro has been discussed mainly under the umbrella of global ghettotech or an afro- futuristic critique thereof (Goodman 2010). The concept of global ghettotech stresses the origin of disparate musical styles in supposedly similar deprived urban areas around the Atlantic whereas an afro-futuristic reading lets go of notions of authenticity and roots in favor of narratives of aquatic or outer spaces, viruses and a focus on technology with transgressive powers (Eshun 1998). We shift this focus to investigate kuduro’s role in the process of re-shaping angolanidade today, arguing, that performative acts in kuduro’s sound, style and demeanour are constituting a new angolanidade. This angolaness is constituted in different contexts of the local, the international and the virtual. We suggest that in its most recent incarnation angolanidade as reflected in and constructed through kuduro is not only digital, but also transnational and closely tied in with a) international systems of popular culture such as hip hop semiotics of dance moves and gang affiliations, b) global electronic music culture as well as c) local Angolan cultural forms like the rich popular musics from the 1950s onwards like semba, kizomba or carnival dancing. Semba as a rhythm or style is regarded as that which makes a a piece of music sound distinctly Angolan, for Moorman semba as an umbrella term includes the social components as well as a variety of genres (Moorman 2008, 7). Both semba and kizomba are usually couple dances. Information for this article have been collected from different perspectives. Nadine Siegert, a cultural anthropologist has done fieldwork for her PhD thesis in Luanda and Lisabon in 2007, 2008 and 2009. While working primarily on the contemporary art-scene, popular music has always been an important sideline in her work. Stefanie Alisch, a musicologist and DJ is preparing a PhD on kuduro and is planning to do field research in Lisbon and Luanda in 2011. Both researchers have established contacts with actors of different platforms of the kuduro-scene (for the concept of platforms, see below). A major part of the research has also been conducted on the internet. Tracking news in various online platforms provides an invaluable but also never-ending source of data. For this article, we develop our argument by utilizing a close reading of video material and contextualizing this with Angolan history and the role music and popular culture played in it. Angolanidade – the Role of Popular Music in Angolan History https://norient.com/academic/kuduro Page 2 of 18 Angolanidade Revisited: Kuduro | norient.com 8 Oct 2021 03:40:08 1.1 Historical Background The present situation in Angola is the result of about 500 years of Portuguese (and Dutch) colonialism, the impact of slave trade and a recent history of wars. Angola had been a Portuguese colony for 400 years, been regarded as Overseas Province to Portugal since 1951, a mere appendix governed by a geographically and culturally remote Estado Novo («New State»). This military regime under António de Oliveira Salazar was one of Europe’s last authoritarian dictatorships. In a time when other African colonies had already become independent, Portugal kept its colonies until 1975. This led to a brutal liberation war in Angola (1961-1974). Independence came as a result of Lisbon’s carnation revolution. It was succeeded by a civil war between the main liberation movements, the Movimento Popular para a Libertação de Angola («People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola», MPLA, today’s government party MPLA, founded in 1956) and the oppositional party União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola («National Union for the Total Independence of Angola», UNITA, founded in 1966 and led by the rebel leader Jonas Savimbi). The civil war was often regarded as one of the most prominent Cold War proxy wars. It ended in 2002 with the death of Savimbi, and devastated land, economy and social structures. Many individuals and their cultural traditions were scattered about the country or forced into exile. At the periphery of Angola’s capital Luanda large informal neighbourhoods called musseques continue to grow as a result of https://norient.com/academic/kuduro Page 3 of 18 Angolanidade Revisited: Kuduro | norient.com 8 Oct 2021 03:40:08 the intra-Angolan migration during and after the civil war. Musseque means «sandy area» in Kimbundu, one of Angola’s main languages. They are the counterparts to terreno asfaltado, the «asphalt areas». With Angola holding one of the highest rates of landmine injuries per capita in the world, amputees are a common sight in the streets of Luanda (Vierke 2008). However, in the postwar years the capital Luanda developed a second face due to the growing economy, relying on natural resources such as oil and diamonds as well as South-to-South business arrangements. With tower blocks and real estate prices soaring Luanda is bursting at the seams and might soon be included in the list of mega-cities (Davis 2006, Rühle 2008). 1.2 Angolanidade, Music and Politics Angolanidade (roughly translated as angolaness) can be described as Angolan cultural patriotism. Angolanidade speaks of a sense of identity both rooted in local cultural practices and in cosmopolitanism, thus being a «rooted cosmopolitanism» or «cosmopolitan patriotism» as defined by Kwame Appiah (Appiah 1996). Since the time of the liberation war it became a metaphor for cultural autonomy of the Angolan population fighting against the colonial oppressors. The concept of angolanidade can be traced back to the late 19th century. A free press that published texts of both, Afro- and Euro-Angolans, was budding then. In the 20th century it became inspired by the ideas of the négritude, a cultural ideology developed by African and Caribbean intellectuals living and studying in France and later becoming the basis for the Cultural Policy of independent francophone states like Senegal. Négritude emphasized the cultural relevance of African literary and cultural output. It was adapted to the Angolan context by intellectuals and artists like the poet Viriato da Cruz. He started the journal A Mensagem («the message») in the 1940s. As the mouthpiece of the first native Angolan literary and political movement Os jovens intellectuais («The Young Intellectuals»), the magazine promoted the slogan Vamos descrobrir Angola («Let’s discover Angola»). Along with other members of Os jovens intellectuais such as Agostinho Neto or Mário Pinto de Andrade, Viriato da Cruz went on to become a leader of the MPLA. US American historian Marissa Moorman provides a comprehensive overview of the political and social role of music and popular culture within this context. She explores how Angolan national consciousness was created and negotiated through music and cultural production in general. (Moorman 2008): «Lyrics and the music were also about saying «yes»: affirming and producing angolanidade and, in the process, marking out a culturally autonomous space forged and expressed in African-owned and -operated clubs, in music festivals, in dress and dance and attitude» (Moorman 2008, 112). https://norient.com/academic/kuduro Page 4 of 18 Angolanidade Revisited: Kuduro | norient.com 8 Oct 2021 03:40:08 Music became explicitly political in the 1950s. At this stage the Angolan liberation movements formed in exile in the neighbouring countries like both Congos as well as in Europe. From there the liberation war started in 1961. Moorman emphasizes that the urban population actively imaginated an independent nation, which she sees as an important step in the indepence process. Angolanidade stood primarily for the cultural movement in the capital Luanda. A rather high percentage of the population in the musseques comprised of mestizos, an ethnically and culturally mixed population. They regarded themselves as the cultural elite engaging strongly in political, social and cultural activities, and formed the core of the liberation movement MPLA. One of the most important bands promoting Angolan patriotism was Ngola Ritmos («Angola Rhythms»), founded in the late 1950s. They supported the guerilla fight with their songs, and some of its musicians were also active members of the liberation movement MPLA. In 1959 and 1960 two of the Ngola Ritmos’ members–Carlos Liceu Viera Dias and Amadeu Amorim–were imprisoned in the infamous Tarrafal jail on the Cape Verde islands for more than ten years.