Contribution short abstract:

Black Atlantic musical expressions and their corresponding performance practices have proliferated on the world stage and have deep continuities with a colonial past. Based on decades of interrogation I make statements on celebratory practices from the slave ship dance to urban ghettoes.

Contribution long abstract:

Black expressive arts, specifically Black Atlantic musical expressions and their corresponding performance practices have proliferated on the contemporary world stage and have deep continuities in a colonial past. These continuities are around movement, celebratory patterns, schemes of eradication, and regulatory frameworks that are evident across historical and contemporary entertainment especially created by the working class descendants of enslaved peoples. I use research based on decades of interrogation to make statements on celebratory practices from the middle passage slave ship, or Limbo, the slave ship dance, to urban ghettoes/favelas/townships as in Jamaica’s Dancehall, Brazil’s Passinho and South Africa’s Kwaito. Located at the intersection of cultural history, cultural geography, and cultural studies more broadly, this paper continues exploration of black Atlantic performance geography and history by placing entertainment practice in a wider comparative and analytical field along a historical trajectory where Africa as source takes shape on a world 'stage' of social and political challenges and opportunities, indeed, transgressive sonicities.