Nightsong : performance, power, and practice in South Africa /

Isicathamiya ("nightsong") is a syncretic South African vocal form that gained international prominence when its foremost performers, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, collaborated on Paul Simon's award-winning popular album Graceland (see also Patrick Humphries's Paul Simon: Still Crazy after All These Years, 1989). Erlmann's important study is as much a persistent neo-Marxist critique of the representation of performance as it is a study of isicathamiya, although his text draws heavily on material from Black Mambazo director Joseph Bekhizizwe Shabalala. Erlmann (Free Univ., Berlin) pleads for greater critical scrutiny of ethnographic narrative, exhorting the reader to eschew conventional narrative modes when representing individuals and cultures. The book is divided into three sections: "Texts," the history of isicathamiya considered in light of contemporary performance theory; "Spaces," a symbolic analysis that situates the genre in a contemporary social web of traditional values and aggressive cultural change; and "Self," a synthesis of ethnomusicological analysis with Shabalala's autobiography. The book includes photographs, an extensive discography, a limited glossary, and some musical examples. However, it assumes knowledge of South African cultural geography without providing maps or demographic data. Upper-division undergraduates and above. M. Forry University of California, Santa Cruz