Music, Ecology, and Activism: Tiken Jah Fakoly’s Pan-African Reggae and Ecomusicological Resistance in Postcolonial Africa

Abstract As ecological crisis and environmental awareness increasingly inform contemporary intellectual and political discourse, growing attention has turned to the role of music in mediating human relationships with nature. This intersection has birthed the field of ecomusicology which examines the entanglements of music, sound, culture, and the environment. But within this expanding body of scholarship, African ecomusicologies remain comparatively underexplored. Positioning itself to address this gap, this study employs a qualitative interpretive approach to critically examine the songs of the West African Ivorian reggae musician Tiken Jah Fakoly. Drawing on postcolonial ecocriticism alongside African cosmologies and ecomusicological frameworks, the analysis identifies three interrelated strategies through which Fakoly’s music articulates African ecomusicologies: environing postcolonial resource resistance that critiques neocolonial extraction and unequal resource politics, environmental witnessing that amplifies ecological urgency, and pan-African renewal that celebrates Africa’s natural and cultural vitality. Positing that these strategies engender Indigenously mediated forms of environmental justice, public consciousness, and sustainable futures, the study tenders that African ecomusicologies cannot be meaningfully theorized without attending to the afterlives of colonialism and the centrality of Indigenous epistemologies. It consequently contributes to African environmental discourse and the affirmation of Indigenous knowledge, while giving greater visibility to African reggae music as a medium of environmental consciousness and mobilization.