Thinking with Agawu: Epistemologies of Difference and Tonal Colonisation in West Africa

Abstract This article builds on the seminal interventions of musicologist Kofi Agawu, namely his critique of representations of African music in the discipline of ethnomusicology and his theory of tonal colonisation. I unpack some of the suggested connections to Edward Said’s Orientalism and introduce specific perspectives on universalism by Souleyman Bachir Diagne. Framing it in relation to the epistemological project of racial difference that enabled slavery and colonialism, I explore Agawu’s advocacy for a refreshed engagement with African music outside of the strictures of ethnomusicology while making a comprehensive assessment of the limitations and benefits of musical transcription. Finally, the article takes a deeper look at the historical confluence of nineteenth-century missionary hymns, the abolition of slavery, and the musical feedback and influences from the Caribbean as a background to the emergence of prototypical West African guitar music in the twentieth century.