Popular music and poet-singers ポピュラー音楽と吟遊詩人
Poet-singers have played a variety of roles throughout the ages, and many have been objects of awe in their communities, or sometimes relegated to the margins of society. In recent years, they have flexibly changed their performance styles and the ways in which they are represented in connection with the popular music world, global consumer society, and the movement to preserve intangible cultural heritage.
Azmari sing around the world（世界に羽ばたくアズマリ）
In recent years, an increasing number of Azmaris have moved beyond Ethiopia’s local communities, to perform outside the country. At the same time, there is a growing number of musicians of various genres.Azmari are also active as international artists. Many young Azmari aspire to become international artists.
Itsushi Kawase
Professor, National Museum of Ethnology
Specialty: Visual Anthropology, African Area Studies
About the costume（衣装について）
Ethiopia is a multiethnic country with approximately 80 ethnic groups. At Azmaribet, which specializes in Azmari music, male and female dancers, usually called “tawzawazi,” change costumes and perform ethnic dances to the accompaniment of Azmari music. Guests then join the dance circles.
About cassettes（カセットについて）
From the 1980s to the early 2000s, the distribution of music on cassettes became mainstream in Ethiopia. Specifically, the music made by Azmari and his/her group belongs to the musical genre of “behelawi musica” (traditional/cultural music), and has produced many hit songs.
Carrying on the traditional bards: Mongolian rappers（吟遊詩人を継承するモンゴル・ラッパーたち）
Today, the number of bardic tuulichs is dwindling in Mongolia, and they are protected as a part of intangible cultural heritage. However, their role of entertaining and healing others with their stories was inherited by hip-hop rappers. The rhyming techniques common to tuulichs and shamans are also applicable to hip-hop rap, which began in the late 1990s and quickly took the country by storm. Rappers use their anger to inspire and heal people of the disparity between the rich and poor, environmental pollution, and a competitive society that makes life difficult. However, it can be said their roles are immeasurable.
Ippei Shimamura
Professor, National Museum of Ethnology
Specialty: Cultural Anthropology, Mongolian Studies
Mongolia, a country where hip-hop is buzzing（ヒップホップがざわめく国、モンゴル）
In Mongolia, it is not unusual for hip-hop music videos to have more than one million views on YouTube. In particular, the song “NAADII (Let’s enjoy the naadam festival)” (2022) by young rapper Young Mo’G became a huge hit with over 24 million views (as of June 2024).
Despite its small population, with a total of 3.4 million people, a concert held in August 2023 in Mongolia to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the hip-hop unit TATAR drew 43,000 people. This figure shows the popularity of hip-hop in this country.
Mongolian hip-hop CDs（モンゴル・ヒップホップのCD）
Mongolia, a former socialist country, embraced Western club DJ culture in the mid-1990s. In other words, young Mongolians started DJing on CD turntables, without going through the era of vinyl turntables. Therefore, most Mongolian hip-hop sources are not plastic records. The first Mongolian hip-hop record was produced by ICE TOP in 2022. Additionally, CD sales are not promising in Mongolia, as it has a small population. Therefore, artists’ basic business model is to upload music videos to YouTube and use them to attract people to live performances. In Mongolia, CDs are a symbolic means of commemorating musicians’ performances.
Griots playing world music（ワールドミュージックするグリオたち）
Griots are responsible for linguistic communication in Mande society; they are also active in pop music, because of their musical talent. Mande pop music originated in Guinea and Mali, where many Mande people live. It then developed in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, during the wave of immigration, and eventually flourished as world music in Paris in the 1980s. The voices of the griots, who passed down the Sunjata epic and sung songs of praise from generation to generation, echo aloud in today’s global world.
Hiroyuki Suzuki
Professor, Kokushikan University
Specialties: Cultural Anthropology, African Music and Literature
Birth of Mande pops in Guinea（マンデ・ポップス誕生 in ギニア）
In Guinea, a country that gained independence in 1958, President Sekou Toure promoted a nationalist cultural policy through music (4). Based on Guinean folk music, African ballet companies (5) developed dance, traditional music ensembles (1, 2, 3) developed folk music, and national bands (6, 7) developed pop music, with Mande’s griot playing a central role in all these areas. Particularly, pop music using modern instruments has gained popularity, and Bembeya Jaza (8) has become one of the leading bands in Africa.
Departure from Mali, via Abidjan, arrival in Paris（マリ発、アビジャン経由、パリ着）
Mali, an African country that gained independence in 1960, pursued a cultural policy modeled on Guinea. The most popular Rail Band produced two stars, Salif Keita (9) and Mory Kante (13), who moved to Abidjan in 1978—the former with his band Ambassadeur (10) and the latter as a solo artist (14). In 1984, they moved to Paris, where their 1987 releases “Soro” (11) and “Akwaba Beach” (15) became world music classics. The other griots are internationally active.
*Salif Keita is not a griot, but he is a “griot-like singer” who has mastered griot singing.
Guinean music and feminism（ギニア音楽とフェミニズム）
The African ballet company, the first to stage Mande music, was formed during the colonial period.The first record of Guinean music, titled “27,” was designed from the perspective of “white people” in a “holy barbarian” style. Conversely, the commemorative album of the 10th National Arts and Culture Festival in 1976 (28) shows a woman proudly dancing a folk dance, emphasizing the subjective beauty of Guinean women. The National Band of the Women’s Gendarmerie (29) features a heart in front of the Eiffel Tower. This is Guinean feminism at its best.
Genealogy of the Sididou family（シディドゥ一族の系譜）
Griots are active in a wide range of genres, from traditional to popular music. The Sididou family is a prestigious griot family in Guinea. The sons of the founder, Nbemba Sidi (30, left), (31), are xylophone virtuosos active in Kankan traditional music ensembles (32). From their children, bands (33, 34) were formed, some of whom became popular singers in Abidjan (35) and eventually world music stars in Paris (36–38). Many became pop stars (39–42), and through marriage, some became linked to other griot family (43,44).
The locality of creation（創造のローカリティ）
Amid new industrial structures and modernization, many performing arts groups lost social solidarity with their patrons and began to live on the margins of agricultural labor and tourism. However, the new profession of “artist” has expanded its field of activity. “Rajasthani music” became a major force that brought together newly created localities and brought them to the market. This section traces how their “performing arts” were collected, softened, and transformed into a global narrative.
Kodai Konishi
Associate Professor, Tokyo Gakugei University
Specialty: Social Anthropology, South Asian Area Studies
Research and archiving of musician communities（楽師集団の研究とアーカイブ化）
In Rajasthan, there has been a growing movement to preserve and protect the rich performing arts world since the 1960s. Researchers and writers, such as ethnomusicologists Komal Kothari and Vijaydan Deta, well-known authors of children’s literature, have been collecting and archiving the vanishing world of the performing arts. They also expanded their activities as new patrons of the performing artists to stage a mixture of performing groups from different parts of the desert area. In this way, “Rajasthani folk music” was created. Ethnographies published as a result of their research and recordings (cassettes and CDs), which were actively released from the 1970s to the 1980s, are presented here.
Creation of “Rajasthani Folk Music” and its global expansion（「ラージャスターン民俗音楽」の創造・グローバルな展開へ）
Creation of “Rajasthani Folk Music” and its global expansion
Rajasthani folk music, which had acquired a market in India, was also transformed into the contents consumed overseas (mainly in Europe and Japan). Groups that maintained separate forms of the performing arts overlapped, and a combination of diverse instrumental performances, chanting, and dance gave rise to variety of contents. In the global marketplace of “world music,” videos and stage performances of dances in glittering costumes (Kalbelia dances) and “traditional” Rajasthani folk songs (Langa and Manganiyar performances) became popular. A performance pamphlet in Japan, Video CD (VCD) packages in India, and CDs that are distributed worldwide are presented here.
Entering Roma (Gypsy) discourse（ロマ（ジプシー）言説への参入）
As their “folk music” developed around the world, it expanded to include a new narrative, in response to the Roma cultural movement in Europe. The light was turned on by performers of Rajasthan as the origin of the Roma people. While this discourse led to an increase in the number of musicians performing around the world, some claimed that they were not Roma, but settled musicians with patrons in royal palaces and villages, while many others described themselves as “wanderers” to struggle in the global market. During the gaining popularity in Sufi (Islamic mysticism) music, some changed their repertoires to reflect their Muslim identity. This exhibition offers a glimpse into the fortitudes of performing artists in the desert.
Since the 1990s, there has been a movement to replace the term “Gypsy” used in this exhibition with “Roma,” as the former is seen as a derogatory term. In this exhibition, we use the term “Roma (Gypsy)” with the understanding that there are people who still call themselves “Gypsies” and that the term “Gypsy” is often used as a tactic in the global market.
Bards, ballads and boundaries
This is an ethnography of the performers of the desert, jointly conducted by ethnomusicologist Komal Kothari, co-creator of the Rajasthani performing arts and an ethnographer from the United States.
It is a substantial monograph that includes statistics from the 1990s onward.
The Langas: a folk-musician caste of Rajasthan
The Langas, a folk-musician caste of Rajasthan, was the first ethnography written by ethnomusicologist Komal Kothari. The cover is made of cloth. This is a valuable monograph based on detailed data on the Langas, a group of musicians—not only in terms of their music, but also their lifestyle and cultural aspects.
Brochures of Japanese performances（日本公演のパンフレット）
These are pamphlets and performance catalogs for the events “The World of Traveling Performers” (1984), organized by the Japan Foundation and “Festival of Indian Folk Music (India Festival)” (1988), organized by the Democratic Music Society of Japan. Many performing artists from Rajasthan visited Japan.
Gypsy caravan（ジプシーキャラバン）
This is a documentary film (2006) about five bands with “Roma (Gypsy) roots” touring North America, including a group of Rajasthani musicians. Each musicians’ life is observed during the documentary.
Pamphlet for the film “Latcho Drome”（映画『ラッチョ・ドローム』のパンフレット）
The film “Latcho Drome” (1993), directed by Tony Gatlif, sparked the Roma music boom. The film tells the story of the thousand-year journey of the Roma people through the performing arts, starting from the western part of Rajasthan (Thar Desert) and leading to Europe.
Costume of Karl Bailya（カールベーリヤーの衣装）
The costumes for the Karl Bailya, a dance that has become a staple of Rajasthani folk art, were borrowed from a Japanese dancer living in Osaka Prefecture. It was registered as a World Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in the 2010s.
African poet-singers perform in Japan（日本で演奏するアフリカの吟遊詩人たち）
In recent years, renowned azmari Dereb Desalegn and HaddinQo have performed in Japan under the auspices of the Ethiopian Art Club (Tokyo). HaddinQo, in particular, has performed Japanese folk songs with the Tokyo-based folk music group “Koderani”. The prominent griot singer Nyama Kante, based in Tokyo, is also actively involved in musical activities in Japan.