NEW! Listen to the Afropop Ensemble's recording of the Tanzanian folk song "Malaika" created remotely during the Fall 2020 semester.

The music department's Afropop Ensemble (Music 0061) exposes the interconnections between African music and the music of the African diaspora such as reggae and jazz. This course focuses on sub-Saharan Afropop through performance and composition, exploring musical elements of Afropop including call and response, repetition, polyphony, improvisation and syncopation. Students will be exposed to Afro-reggae and Afro-jazz, genres that resulted from the fusion of African and Western music elements. The class will meet twice a week for 1.5 hours per session.

Instructor Dr. Ben Barson is a protégé of Fred Ho, a winner ASCAP’s top award in jazz composers under 30, the Johnny Mandel prize, and a member of the Afro Yaqui Music Collective