Featuring a rich collection of raps, signifyings, toasts, boasts, jokes, and children's verses, this book appeals to both general readers and scholars. An introductory essay provides context, linking these forms of expression to a broader pan-African tradition and exploring their connections to contemporary oral cultures like rap and spoken word.
The book critically examines the field of African Studies, highlighting its entanglement with Western epistemology and the challenges it faces in North America and Britain. The author, a prominent African scholar, explores the implications of shifting cultural policies influenced by changes in classroom demographics and global power dynamics. Through this interrogation, he addresses the theoretical frameworks and assumptions that shape African Studies, advocating for intellectual liberation and a reevaluation of its foundations. Esteemed scholars have praised this insightful work.
Chronicles the lives of two families in post-colonial Africa, the first - poor, working-class and ill-educated - is compared to the young politically aware college student and her journalist fiance. The middle-class pair become victims of the same brutal violence that the poor and powerless suffer.