African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms

this is THE classic on african music. you will find it listed in the bibliographies of almost any serious study that came later. it is in-depth and comprehensive. if you want to get just one: this is it.

This book's sweetness, modesty, humor and graceful scholarship honors one of the world's greatest achievements. It's about drumming, and life.

This is a remarkable work that fits African music into its cultural context and is consistently provocative and enlightening. It's a world music classic, along with such studies as "The Latin Tinge," "The Brazilian Sound" and "Catch a Fire."

What begins as a primer in African polyrhythm becomes a spiritual quest to understand culture and humanity. Don't skip the endnotes in this impassioned examination of musical tonality and rhythm. Forging a tentative balance between scholarship and interpretation, Chernoff's book addresses the subconscious dynamics of culture, and unwittingly explains "race" more convincingly than the agitprop self-promoters whose explicit goal is to deconstruct the historical consciences of Africans and Europeans.