Sound of Africa!

"What fun it was reading Louise Meintjes’s Sound of Africa! It’s an amazing work, almost magical at moments. I know of no other account in print of life in a sound studio. That Meintjes also takes on contemporary South Africa, questions of ethnic and national identity, and world culture and provides an entree into current ethnomusicological thinking is all the more remarkable."—John F. Szwed, author of Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra

”Louise Meintjes's Sound of Africa! is a very in-depth but philosophical look at how the common thread of music brings African traditions and culture and modern western technology together across the stormy backdrop of South African politics.”—John Lindemann, recording engineer, Big Ears Music c.c., South Africa

”Well researched and unbiased, Sound of Africa! is an authentic account of three decades of South African music—live and in the studio. It stands as a testimony to the changing struggles and constant inventiveness of South Africa's producers, musicians, and engineers who worked in the music industry during apartheid.”—Koloi Lebona, record producer and Zomba label manager, South Africa

“Sound of Africa!, the first serious study of musicmaking in an African recording studio, is a pathbreaking contribution to the scholarly literature on popular music. Louise Meintjes's research demonstrates, in the most specific terms, that the 'production' of popular music is a complex, multistranded process, penetrated by economic and aesthetic considerations, identity politics writ large and small, and the global traffic in cultural forms and technologies.”—Christopher Waterman, author of Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music

“A lively and distinctive book. . . . A highly readable account that will appeal to those who have ever tapped their feeet to this irresistible ‘township’ music and will compel those who have not to seek it out. Enthusiastically recommended. . . .”

“Meintjes’ book offers perceptive descriptions. . . . An unflinching account of how the media became entangled with the country’s ethnic violence during the 1990s.”

"A major and uniquely different contribution to the body of scholarship on South African popular music. . . . A valuable contribution to the literature exploring the intersection between identity, technology, and aesthetics in various black musics. . . ."

"A strikingly novel and compelling narrative. . . . informative, empirically sound, and engaging."

"A wonderfully rich and highly contextualized study of one point in the constellation of processes that are coming together to define what it can mean to be South African today: a music studio in Johannesburg. . . . Louise Meintjes offers a compelling portrait-soundscape?-of how recording and producing music is intimately connected to the production of Zulu-ness and African-ness, both within South Africa and within the increasingly vibrant circuits of world music marketing and recording. It should serve as a model for further research on the intersections of music making, technology, and the mediation of identity."