Abstracts - American Musicological Society

10 Thursday Morning: Session 1- 9
AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans 2012
songs of new and old. For most Birifor xylophonists this role leads to rampant jealousy within a local culture of competition
and suspicion, making them targets for malicious gossip and witchcraft (suoba). However, for Birifor xylophonists with
blindness, a physical condition with a longstanding history in the region, the perception of their minds, bodies, and music
through a preexisting cultural ideology of ability leads to a compound form of subordination that relegates their very being
to witchcraft. While the social and physical models of disability recognized in recent Western scholarship persist in Birifor
culture, they are encapsulated within a previously untheorized spiritual model of disability that labels the disabled body as the
result of corrupting mystical forces. Confronting this compound subordination of musicianship and disability, blind Birifor
xylophonists identify, critique, and contest the locations of disability by composing and performing “enemy music” (dondomo
yiel). Examining select compositions by blind Birifor xylophonists, this presentation references fieldwork recordings and song
texts to amplify the unsung perspectives of musicians with blindness, while exploring the broader implications of the culturespecific
aspects of ableism for music scholarship.
Staff Benda Bilili and the Need to Overcome the Ableist Trope of “Overcoming Disability”
Elyse Marrero (Florida State University)
Staff Benda Bilili is a Congolese rock band from the streets of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The band
is backed by former street kids, with the core members consisting of older musicians who have physical disabilities due to
contracting polio during childhood. These older musicians were ostracized by non-disabled musicians in Kinshasa leading to
the formation of Staff Benda Bilili. During my research of this band, I noticed the ignorant and problematic ways journalists
describe Staff Benda Bilili, which include the lack of disability language etiquette, and the use of a common and irritating
trope in describing successful persons with a disability: the trope of “overcoming disability.” By referencing recent scholarship
on Beethoven and deafness, through my analysis of the music video and lyrics of Staff Benda Bilili’s song “Polio,” and my
critical take on a BBC article and video report about Staff Benda Bilili, I argue that this band has claimed their identity of
disability. I also argue that the trope of “overcoming disability” is not only offensive but also discredits the musicianship of
Staff Benda Bilili, and ignores the musical and non-musical accommodations these musicians have created for themselves. The
paper calls for overcoming the use of the trope of “overcoming disability” and to change the typical ways ethnomusicologists
describe musicians with disabilities. This discriminative language is what disables musicians with disabilities—not the actual
physical, emotional, or cognitive difference labeled “disability”—and disables musical scholarship that focuses on deficit
rather than difference.
Session 1-9 (SEM), 8:30–10:30
Revival and Renewal
Riccardo Trimillos (University of Hawai‘i), Chair
“We Had Great Books, but No Music”: Iceland, with and without Music
Kimberly Cannady (University of Washington)
A foundational myth in Icelandic cultural history is an imagined “absence” of music prior to the introduction of symphonic
music in the early 1900s. Despite evidence of diverse forms of musical expression in Iceland prior to the twentieth century,
this non-presence is claimed in most European scholarly texts, and was also repeated by Icelanders themselves during my
fieldwork. The persistent idea of the “music-less nation” has been offered as an explanation for the perceived development of
a unique Icelandic Sound in contemporary popular music, and the growing international success of such music. Strikingly,
at the same time, aspects of pre-twentieth century Icelandic music, such as rímur and the langspil increasingly appear in the
very same music. This contradiction reveals the role of musical heritage, both real and imagined, throughout Iceland’s long
nation-building project beginning in the nineteenth century. While Iceland’s cultural reputation was built on its adored literary
and linguistic history, its musical history was encouraged to be forgotten in favor of continental musical trends. This paper
explores the political and historical reasons for the stripping of musical history from the mid-nineteenth century up until the
late twentieth century, and examines the context for a renewed interest in the abandoned musical styles. My research is based
on two years of fieldwork in Denmark and Iceland, and is informed by musicologist Árni Heimir Ingólfsson’s work regarding
Icelandic musical history, Philip Bohlman’s research on music and European nationalism, and anthropologist Kristín Loftsdóttir’s
work on Icelandic national identity.