Appendix 6 - International Music Council

INTRODUCTION
This report is the result of surveys carried out on local, national and regional level.
One should recall that the immensity of this mission requires an important material
time which did not enable us to achieve greater conclusions on the regional level.
For these obvious reasons, our conclusions will be the fruit of a local and national
investigation supported by the contacts drawn up further to a few seminars
organized in Brazzaville by the Panafrican Festival of Music (FESPAM) and A I F in
collaboration with WIPO under the patronage of the ministry of justice and human
rights of Congo-Brazzaville.
This report divides into the following three periods:
a) the colonial period
b) the period of independencies
c) the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
a) The colonial period
During this painful period of the history of Africa, the culture of the colonizers is
imposed by force on the natives, thus reducing to silence the local expressions.
There was a clear division in two blocks of the metropoles: the centre town was
inhabited by the white and their auxiliaries and the popular districts were inhabited
by the natives.
This division is also to be noticed at the level of culture and its expressions.
The modern music, which is the prerogative of the first block, is protected and
promoted while that of the second block - often an expression of suffering and claims
- is prohibited of dissemination in the media and in public occasions such as the
celebration of the weddings, feasts of independence.
During this period, many traditional musical instruments of Africa are plundered and
exported towards the Occident.
b) the period of independencies
This period is marked by with an awakening on the side of the natives with regard to
their cultural (musical) heritage.
The colonists are convinced of the need to live in a symbiosis with Africans by
showing an interest for the music of the indigenous, but only as simple curiosity, or
by adapting it to the Western standards.
This period coincides with the period of the choices between the Marxist ideology
embodied by Eastern Europe and the capitalist ideology embodied by the United
States. One observes therefore the appearance of the "engaged music"; the creation
of various radios in the colonies and the creation of popular bars.
It should be pointed out that until then, cultural expressions remain captive of the
ideologies in place.
c) the Period after the fall of Berlin wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall liberates the political space of our respective countries
insofaras several political parties are created. With the effect for the music life being
that there is no more prohibition (interdiction).
One observes a proliferation of musical groups including within churches. The discs
do not suffer anymore from embargoes, the recordings in studios are no longer done
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