What Is ‘African Music’? Musical Categorization and Nation Building in Post‐Colonial Mozambique

ABSTRACT What is meant by ‘African music’ in a newly independent African country, and who holds the authority to define it? Focusing on Mozambique after independence, this article examines how musical categorization became a central political and ideological concern within FRELIMO's nation‐building project. Through an analysis of a highly polarized public debate surrounding the musical programming of the national radio station (1981), this article argues that music functioned not only as a vehicle for promoting revolutionary values but also as a contested site where racialized, territorial and historical imaginaries of ‘Africanness’ were negotiated. Drawing on an ‘ethnography of the past’, combining archival analysis of listeners' letters with interviews with key radio workers and cultural agents, this study situates these debates within broader discussions on nation‐building and musical categorization. Ultimately, it demonstrates how disputes over ‘African music’ both reflected unresolved issues in FRELIMO's history, while foreshadowing changes that would only materialize in later years.