Intonations: A Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola, from 1945 to Recent Times

New African Histories

by Marissa J. Moorman

Intonations tells the story of how Angola’s urban residents in the late colonial period (roughly 1945–74) used music to talk back to their colonial oppressors and, more importantly, to define what it meant to be Angolan and what they hoped to gain from independence. A compilation of Angolan music is included in CD format. Marissa J. Moorman presents a social and cultural history of the relationship between Angolan culture and politics. She argues that it was in and through popular urban music, produced mainly in the musseques (urban shantytowns) of the capital city, Luanda, that Angolans forged the nation and developed expectations about nationalism. Through careful archival work and extensive interviews with musicians and those who attended performances in bars, community centers, and cinemas, Moorman explores the ways in which the urban poor imagined the nation. The spread of radio technology and the establishment of a recording industry in the early 1970s reterritorialized an urban-produced sound and cultural ethos by transporting music throughout the country. When the formerly exiled independent movements returned to Angola in 1975, they found a population receptive to their nationalist message but with different expectations about the promises of independence. In producing and consuming music, Angolans formed a new image of independence and nationalist politics.

Genres: Angola, Music

320 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2008

Reviews

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last three years found me listening to what Moorman calls the "golden age of Angolan music" -- late 60s and early 70s. I was keen to learn how this exceptional music was made possible. Moorman's book took me there and gave a sense of the social, political, cultural, and musical complexity of the times.

My favorite parts were her discussion of the foreign influences, the attempt of Angolans to place their music and cultural sovereignty on the world stage, and the influence of the recording industry on Angolan music -- especially the release and circulation of Cuban records in the 1930s. I appreciated too Moorman's ability to show the complicated and nuanced relationship between musical developments and what we might think of as more explicit politics.

I felt a flaw and a bias. The flaw is an overemphasis on lyrics and therefore a lack of attention to the politics and aesthetics of musical forms. Lyrics are perhaps the least important aspect of music -- a claim, I think, Moorman would accept. Compare her work to that of John Miller Chernoff and one see's immediately how Angolan forms might themselves be political. It means something that this music is not as dense as West African music, not as harmonically inflected as South African music, and depends on what I would call "sweet guitars" -- which I love.

The bias seems to be against the state's attempt to influence music. I share this stance -- art has to have its autonomy. And yet, I fear that the Angolan state that came into power in the mid 70s has its own story to tell on these issues. I would have liked to heard more of that story.

All in all, the book gave me exactly what I sought, namely, a grounding to how this astonishing music came to be. And it spurred me to wonder about the Cuban musical influence and therefore the influence of the recording industry on the history of music in the African continent. It seems as if this is also Moorman's next project. I look forward to her next book.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a (qualified) compliment. I appreciated that Intonations attempts to lift the analysis out of Angolanidade beyond that one of nation/nationalism and add a romanticized lilt into how music became an integral component of Angolanidade as a cultural practice and outlook. Moorman displayed an intimacy with the musseques that ran explicitly counter to the pathologizing of the social scientists whose metanarratives she sought to unravel. In contrast, Moorman takes the musseques as they are, even going so far as to reconstruct (in the second person) the times and places from which this music emerged. These scenes were, for me, the most memorable of the book. I wonder if they are not also problematic in their idealization. Is to valorize necessarily better than to pathologize?

I was confused by the lack of the rural (or the non-musseques, in general). This was especially apparent at the end of Ch. 4 when she says technological innovations “would take semba from its origins as a musseque novelty to cities and towns throughout the territory and back again” (p. 139). The argument here seems based upon an assumption of radio’s power of disseminate and bring people together. In terms of her on-the-ground work, she seems to stay in Luanda. Where does she discuss how semba interacts with, and is brought “back again” from, the rural?

One question you could have upon reading this work is how Moorman seemingly undermines interviewee opinions that their music wasn't (explicitly) political. But perhaps this is because Moorman’s concept of intonation is partly based on the investment of Angolans of “being hip, hot, or cool” (p. 8). With this understanding of the stakes, Moorman's point would still stand; the mere acts of making music and dancing to it articulates a cultural outlook counter that of the Portuguese social scientists' claims of lusotropicalism.

I began with a compliment and end with a critique. I wonder if this book would have benefitted from attending more to performance of culture. What I mean here is that for a book about music, its function within a larger concept of culture seemed to get reduced to that which was anti-colonial or a declaration of gender prerogatives. Both of these ideas were treated well (if a bit repetitively) by Moorman, but I think music has still other performative effects that went unexplored in this social history. How did music function inter-generationally? How was it performed as a cosmopolitan act of urbanites (recalling James Ferguson’s distinctions of cosmopolitanism as a distinction from the local)? How did the performance of music produce new subjectivities that understood not only Angolan, but themselves as different from before (i.e., what does it mean to be hip, cool, hot)? Given that Angolanidade was an unintentional byproduct in a quest to be cool, I’m a bit confused why the study of “cool,” itself did not occupy a more central place in this study.

[Musa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Came for the music, left with incredible historical context 👍

[Leandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proud to help in this astonishing book.