Coplan Critical Review

            Coplan addresses the rise of popular music in South Africa and the course it has taken up to the present day.  South African musical development was both hindered and aided by apartheid, as the segmentation made it hard for artists to collaborate while at the same time this separation thus allowed for many different styles to emerge.  Musicians took queues from genres such as Christian choir music, American jazz, and North/West African traditional music.  Coplan, however, made it very clear that South African musicians almost always created a syncretic genre.  The formation of new music, and the South African music “scene” in general, was largely aided by mass movements of people to cities such as Johannesburg and Kimberley in search of profit from natural resources.

            I found the ways in which South African Music was aided by these mass migrations to the mining cities particularly interesting.  Although almost all of the major players in the emerging music scene were present in South Africa before the migrations, the musical developments and exchanges made would not have happened without the cities or outlets for expression that they created. (i.e. canteens, bars, house parties etc.)  The effect of urbanization on musical progress has been a recurring theme this year, though I wonder if there is any modern example of this?  Is the internet the closest thing that we have today, and with the creation of the internet, will “new cities” or “urban movements” hold less weight than they once did, since we are all already connected via the world wide web?