LATA 2361

Arranging Nationhood–Reclaiming Identity: Caribbean Folk Albums in the USA

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

This course explores how first-generation American and immigrant musicians from the Caribbean and Latin America arranged and commodified the folk music of their countries for audiences in the United States. Whether for entertainment, as political protest, or as a way to understand themselves, artists like Harry Belafonte and Franz Casseus in the 1950s to Nathalie Joachim and Layla McCalla in recent years embraced the music of Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad for musical inspiration. We will first consider the nature of folk music as a repository for cultural heritage and then examine its relationship to other genres of music. We will listen to many albums and compose our own folk arrangements. Other course themes will include: transnationalism, hybridity, commercialism, cultural appropriation and social justice.

When Offered Spring.

Distribution Category (GLC-AS) (CA-AG)

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