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“Fusion” Musics And Tunisian Identity In The Age Of The Global Stereo, Rachel Colwell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Introduction (excerpt)

In this paper I will explore how contemporary Tunisian musicians have engaged with and adopted various “foreign” or “external” musics by melded them in myriad intricate and often controversial ways with the tunes, rhythms, and symbolic meanings of their own historically local musics. Equally, or perhaps more importantly, I will address how audiences throughout Tunisia have received these musical “fusion” projects and movements and will touch upon the responses of Tunisian diasporic communities and cosmopolitan cultural formations within and beyond the borders of the country.

I will present two case studies, the work of Anouar Brahem and the …