RCGA International and Global Studies Colloquium: Lecture by Damascus Kafumbe

“Recording and Remixing ‘Teach Me to Love’: Musical, Cultural, and Temporal Paradoxes in My Music”
by Damascus Kafumbe, associate professor of music, Middlebury College; part of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs International and Global Studies Colloquium. Lunch is free for current Middlebury College students/faculty/staff; $5 for others; RSVP by 2/10 to rcga@middlebury.edu.
In this lecture demonstration, Kafumbe will examine the process of recording and remixing his 2018 neotraditional song cycle EP, ‘Teach Me to Love,’ focusing on how the original record and its remix operate within various paradoxes. As he will demonstrate through the presentation, these paradoxes are evident in the two records’ sonic and extrasonic elements: Ugandan harp solos that offer a cross-continental nod to Senegambian and Malian kora music; East and central African drumbeats that echo Senegalese Wolof drumming; clave imaginaries refracted from the Caribbean back to West Africa whence they came; Afro-bass counterpoint reminiscent of Brazilian samba; lyrics that bring spiritual and ancestral practices to the dance floor; and musical hybrids that form a crossroads of past and future.