Fruity Batidas: The Technologies and Aesthetics of Kuduro
Keywords:
kuduro, technology, production, hybridity,Abstract
The interconnectedness of music technologies, studio innovation and dancing bodies is a key feature of electronic music cultures. An emerging scholarship by writers such as Butler and Tjora has bridged these studio and performance spaces, revealing the relationship between machine, music and party. This article considers the centrality of studio and performance technologies and techniques in the developing aesthetics of kuduro. I use interviews and observation of studio and performance practices to illustrate shifts within the genre and examine musical examples to highlight transitions. I argue that the increased availability of digital musical technologies in Angola shaped the development of kuduro through the 1990s and into the 2000s. Furthermore, I argue that kuduro producers and performers have developed a range of aesthetic and performative practices that reflect social, material and technological restraints common to life in contemporary Angola. By examining interviews with kuduro practitioners and musical examples, this article sheds new light on the under examined aesthetics of kuduro.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Such derivate works or subsequent publications must happen no less than one calendar year after the initial publication date in Dancecult.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
