ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to approach the topic of “Colonization/Decolonization in the Americas” from a global point of view and with a specific look at inter-American relations. He investigates neo-African forms of music in the Americas with regards to African retentions on the level of musical forms and elements, such as multirhythm and multimeter, repetition, call-and-response patterns, and the importance of the drum. The author analyzes music and specific approaches to using sound as communication in a philosophical sense. African-based diasporic cultures are highly complex cases of global and transcultural formations, as there is a whole array of variations in the Americas, Europe, and within Africa. The main features distinguishing African cultures from North Atlantic ones are nonlinear, context-based conceptions of time, a strong emphasis on repetition, communal notions of the person, and most importantly, an oral culture that was the main form of communication until the introduction of writing by Europeans.
