ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a theoretical premise for the author's ideas on decoloniality and aesthetics, which he frame in dialogue with pertinent assertions from relevant academic literature. He address the issue of missionaries and the colonial effect on local cultures and musical practices as a set of formative influences in singing and arranging hymns among Black South Africans. Although not concerned with the study of music, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, in his preoccupation with redressing the problems of nineteenth-century colonialism and imperialism, advocates that while decoloniality has been implied as a political and epistemic initiative in the liberation of those previously colonized, it has also unequivocally affected the thinking, knowing, and doing facets of life. Missionization has been referred to by some scholars as the other side of the coin of colonialism. The teaching of Christianity was accompanied by the teaching and singing of hymns, which is outlined in wide-ranging historical accounts.
