Dec. 7th Articles

The first article, "Cape Verdean Creole and the Politics of Scene-Making in Lisbon, Portugal" by Derek Pardue is about the performance and acceptance of Kriolu rap in Lisbon, Portugal. Some people for Kriolu rap attractive and others found it disturbing and offensive at the time of its emergence. It began with a group of mostly young men of Cape Verdean descent, singing or rapping in a Creole language that is not an official language in Portugal or Cape Verde. Throughout the author's studies of the rap lyrics, a study of the Kriolu language itself, and conversations with the rappers, he found that Kriolu rap is a, "renewed interrogation of diaspora and of place-based identity." He also found that Kriolu rap offers some insight into the relationship between music and social claims.

The second article, "Colonial Resettlement and Cultural Resistance: The Mbira Music of Zimbabwe" is about how thoughout the world colonial settlements were uprooting indigionus people and distupting their ways of life and taking them away from their cultural heritage. This article specifically examines the resistance of Zimbabwe's Shona population between the early 1800s and the late 1980s. However, instead of studing their physical resistance to resettlement, the author studies the effect their music had on the Shona tribe.

These articles are similar because they both describe the effect a population's heritage has on their music and culture. They also discuss the reaction of a population to the music; for example, in Cape Verde there was a mixed reaction to Kriolu music and in Zimbabwe there was support because it exemplified resistance to the resettlement of the Shona tribe. The differences in the article are that one is strictly about a modern take on a very old language and the second is about the history of the music of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe.