The post-WWII era was a moment of crucial cultural and political encounters for continental Africans and Afro-diasporic descendants, principally in major metropolitan cities like New York, Paris, and London. As many scholars have noted, musical exchanges were key to these encounters — in dance clubs, recording studios, and concert halls. Despite their historical importance as moments of political unity and pan-African solidarity during decolonial and civil rights struggles, these encounters were not without tensions and contradictions.
Focusing on the efforts of Jamaican-American singer Harry Belafonte, African-American conductor Leonard de Paur, and Nigerian singers Solomon and Rosalind Ilori to record a Black Music Anthology — capturing 400 years of Black music — this paper analyzes how colonial archival categories such as nation, tribe, language, religion, and function framed perceptions of African music and musicians. In contrast, Black diasporic musicians were seen as individual artists, working within genre categories as representatives of a modern popular music industry. Analyzing these contradictions can provide a deeper understanding of the challenges pan-African political and cultural actors faced during the 1960s, as they bore marks – implicit and explicit – of centuries of colonial rule.
