Hugh Tracey, African Music and Colonial Power: Correspondence with Government Officials in the 1950s

Abstract

This article contributes to the growing body of revisionist scholarship on the work of Hugh Tracey (1903-1977), who compiled the major collection of recordings of African music that is housed at the institution he founded, the International Library of African Music (ILAM). Several scholars have probed the complexities of Tracey’s socio-historical position and drawn attention to ways in which his academic work participates in and aligns itself with colonial and apartheid structures of thought. Taking a somewhat different approach, this article focusses on how Tracey managed and marketed his musical enterprise within the colonial field of power. It contextualises and examines his interactions with officials who enabled his tours and became corporate clients of ILAM during the 1950s, and his attempts to form similar relationships with the apartheid state. An analysis of correspondence between Tracey and a representative of the Central African Federation reveals his openness to the use of music for propaganda purposes. Finally, the article considers the implications for ILAM today and recommends acknowledgement and some form of redress as appropriate ethical engagement with its history.