Link to timeline is below the quote.
While these figures below barely exhaust all the Black Musicians, Composers, and Scholars I’ve come across I hope that it will give some food for thought. Those of us who work in Western and colonialized academic music/sound studies must understand how our fields and knowledge systems have helped to maintain the narratives of exclusion and white supremacy because those are the foundation on which they were built.
Featured Image: An artist rendering of St Yared while chanting Zema accompanied by sistrum, tau-cross staff. The three main zema chants of Ge’ez, Izil, and Araray which are represented by three birds. Digua, a book of chant, atronse (book holder), a drum, and a processional cross are also seen here.
Source: Methafe Diggua Zeqidus Yared. Addis Ababa: Tensae Printing Press, 1996.
