Paper short abstract:

This presentation discusses the "flow" of Congolese music and musicians from Africa to the Caribbean and its re-writings of the Middle Passage archives. In so doing, it contributes to the understanding of new transatlantic agents, texts, rhythms and objects in South-South mobility.

Paper long abstract:

Music is one of the elements of cultural survival/flourishment and constitutes an indispensable memorial archive of human relations, aspirations, anxieties and visions. It is impossible to engage with South-South transatlantic dynamics without a careful examination of the fundamental role of sound/music in re-signifying the lifeworlds of Afro-descendant subjects. In this perspective, the Colombian cities of Cartagena de Indias and Barranquilla incarnate intercultural hubs of new forms of movement and mobility between Africa and South America. The popularisation of African music in these two cities in particular grants insights into contemporary modes of cultural transactions between the Caribbean and Africa that can be aligned with historical connections dating back to the slave trade as well as the new wave of the globalisation of African popular culture trends. In this paper, I explore the phenomenon of cultural (re?)connection through the migration of Congolese music and musicians to the Colombian Caribbean coast and its possible contributions to transatlantic cultural studies. I will track the re-signification of musical references in a Caribbean context caught between nostalgia for Africa on the one hand, and systematically stereotypical othering of Africa, on the other hand. The trajectories and contours of cultural products as well as cultural agents, from Africa to the Caribbean, will enable me to throw light on new approaches to transatlantic encounters and movements in the late 20th and early 21st century and their peculiarities. Secondly, through specific examples of soukous-champeta lyrics by artists such as Remy Sahlomon, Mbilia Bel, Lokassa Ya Mbongo and Extra Musica, I will examine the processes of re-coding and re-mixing of metaphors, sound and texts as means of re-appropriating Congolese soukous/rumba rhythms in the the popular culture landscape of Colombia's Caribbean coast.