Sound of Africa!

"Well researched and unbiased, Sound of Africa! is an authentic account of three decades of South African music-live and in the studio. It stands as a testimony to the changing struggles and constant inventiveness of South Africa's producers, musicians, and engineers who worked in the music industry during apartheid."-Koloi Lebona, record producer and Zomba label manager, South Africa "What fun it was reading Louise Meintjes's Sound of Africa! It's an amazing work, almost magical at moments. I know of no other account in print of life in a sound studio. That Meintjes also takes on contemporary South Africa, questions of ethnic and national identity, and world culture and provides an entree into current ethnomusicological thinking is all the more remarkable."-John F. Szwed, author of Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra "Sound of Africa!, the first serious study of musicmaking in an African recording studio, is a pathbreaking contribution to the scholarly literature on popular music. Louise Meintjes's research demonstrates, in the most specific terms, that the 'production' of popular music is a complex, multistranded process, penetrated by economic and aesthetic considerations, identity politics writ large and small, and the global traffic in cultural forms and technologies."-Christopher Waterman, author of Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music "Louise Meintjes's Sound of Africa! is a very in-depth but philosophical look at how the common thread of music brings African traditions and culture and modern western technology together across the stormy backdrop of South African politics."-John Lindemann, recording engineer, Big Ears Music c.c., South Africa " ... a highly involved study of Zulu music production in the South African music industry. The outcome of many years of work, it weaves theoretical delibertation with her extraordinary experiences as a fieldworker among South African musicians and producers ... the result is a book that glows with the warmth of fine scholarship and its humanity shines through."--Leeds African Studies Bulletin, No. 66, 2004