Books
2020 A New and Concise History of Rock and R&B, through the Early 1990s. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
2012 (editor) Hip Hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Opening and closing chapters: “A Capsule History of African Rap,” pp. 1-25 ; “Music for an African Twenty-First Century,” pp. 283-315. (Wesleyan access to the ebook).
2000 Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Book-in-progress
Four Cultural Vanguards: Music and Downtown New York, 1950s-1960s
Articles, chapters, encyclopedia and dictionary entries
2019 “Jeliya” and “Mamaya,” in David Horn, John Shepherd, and others (eds.), Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, vol. 12: Genres: Sub-Saharan Africa, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 310-315, 381-383.
2018 “Music and Postcolonial Africa,” in Martin S. Shanguhyia and Toyin Falola (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Colonial and Postcolonial History, New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, vol. 2: 1231-1261. (Wesleyan access to the ebook)
2013 “Cecil Taylor,” in Charles Hiroshi Garrett (ed.), The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd ed., New York: Oxford University Press.
2011 “Cultural Revolution and African Music: Guinea and Its Legacy,” in Zhang Boyu (ed.), Dialogues in Music: Africa Meets Asia, Proceedings of the 2005 and 2007 International Symposia on African and Chinese Music, Point Richmond, CA: MRI Press, 36-44.
2009 “Ornette Coleman” (272-276) and “Cecil Taylor” (1478-1481), in Alfred W. Cramer (ed.), Musicians and Composers of the 20th Century, Pasadena, CA: Salem Press.
2008 “Music: Africa,” in Peter N. Stearns (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, Oxford University Press, vol. 5: 302-304.
2007 “Ethnomusicology and the Study of Africa” (2: 344-346), “Fodeba Keita” (3: 94-95), “Salif Keita” (3: 95-96), and “Youssou N’Dour” (4: 20-21),” in Joseph Miller and John Middleton (eds.), New Encyclopedia of Africa, 2nd ed., Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons Reference Books.
2005 “Introduction,” in Babatunde Olatunji, with Robert Atkinson, assisted by Akinsola Akiwowo, The Beat of My Drum: An Autobiography, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1-26.
2003 “Africa,” in The Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed., Don Randel (ed.), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 17-26.
2002 “The Mande Praise Song Kayra (Peace): Mande Global Perspectives,” co-authored with Jan Jansen (The Netherlands) and Seydou Camara (Mali), Metamorphoses 10(1): 300-21.
2001 “Griot” (10: 427), “Guinea” (10: 540-46), “Jembe” (12: 942-43), “Mali” (15: 688-96), “Senegal” (23: 74-78), in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., Stanley Sadie (ed.), London: Macmillan.
2000 “Music and Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in The History of Islam in Africa, Nehemia Levtzion and Randall Pouwels (eds.), Athens: Ohio University Press, 545-73.
—— “Mamaya: Renewal and Tradition in the Manninka Music of Kankan, Guinea (1935-45),” co-authored with Lansiné Kaba, in The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective, Ingrid Monson (ed.), New York: Garland, 187-206.
1997-8 “Freedom and Form in Ornette Coleman’s Early Atlantic Recordings,” Annual Review of Jazz Studies 9: 261-94.
1996 “Plucked Lutes in West Africa: an Historical Overview,” Galpin Society Journal 49: 3-37.
—— “A Guide to the Jembe,” Percussive Notes (April) 34(2): 66-72. Expanded online version.
1994 “The Grand Mande Guitar Tradition of the Western Sahel and Savannah,” The World of Music 36(2): 21-61.
—— “West African Harps,” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 20: 5-53.
Reviews
2010 Review of DVD, Patrick Kersalé (dir.), Tambours et Djembes du Burkina Faso/Drums and Djembes of Burkina Faso, 2003, Playasound, PS69001. Yearbook for Traditional Music 42: 236-237.
2008 Review of DVD, Roderic Knight (prod.), Mande Music and Dance: Performed by Mandinka Musicians of The Gambia in the Late Twentieth Century, 2005, Lyrichord/Multicultural Media, LYRDV 2001. Ethnomusicology 52(1): 154-156.
2007 Review of CD, Senegal. Nalanke Pular (A Fulbe Griot): Birame N’Diaye, 2005, Disques VDE-Gallo, VDE CD-1152. Yearbook for Traditional Music 39: 185-186.
2005 Review of two CD-ROMs: The Jazz Discography, Version 4.4, Tom Lord, 2004; and 85 Years of Recorded Jazz (1917-2002, A-Z Complete), W. Bruyninckx and D. Truffandier, 2004. Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 61(3): 833-837.
2004 Review of CD, Niger. Peuls Wodaabe: Chants du worso/Wodaabe Fulani: Worso songs, 1998, INEDIT W260081. Ethnomusicology 48(1): 153-55.
2003 Review of Meki Nzewi, African Music: Theoretical Content and Creative Continuum, The Culture-Exponent’s Definitions, Oldershausen: Institut für Didaktik populärer Musik, 1997. African Studies Review 46(3): 157-58.
—— Review of Scott Saul, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. Annual Review of Jazz Studies 13: 223-226.
—— Review of Simon Ottenberg, Seeing with Music: The Lives of Three Blind African Musicians, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996. African Studies Review 46(3): 166-68.
—— Review of CD, Siramori Diabaté: Griot Music from Mali #3, 2002, PAN Records 2104. Yearbook for Traditional Music 35: 217.
—— Review of CD-ROM, Music and Culture of West Africa: The Straus Expedition. Indiana University Press, 2002. Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 60(2): 508-510.
2000 Review of Michelle Kisliuk, Sieze the Dance! BaAka Musical Life and the Ethnography of Performance, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. The World of Music 42(2): 145-49.
—— Review of two CDs: Mali: Bambara Music of Baninko, 1998, VDE-Gallo, VDE CD 980; Mali: The Dogon. Music of the Masks and the Funeral Rituals, 1999, INEDIT W 260089; Yearbook for Traditional Music 32: 228-29.
1999 “Free Jazz” (15-17), “Africa” (361-62), in Reader’s Guide to Music: History, Theory, Criticism, Murray Steib (ed.), Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. (Essays reviewing major books in the field.)
1998 Review of two CDs: Aicha Mint Chighaly: Griote de Maurtianie, INEDIT W260078; and Senegal: Le Saoruba de Casamance, VDE-Gallo, VDE CD 926; Yearbook for Traditional Music 30: 182-84.
—— Review of John Cowley, Carnival, Canboulay, and Calypso: Traditions in the Making, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Yearbook for Traditional Music 30: 145-47.
1996 Review of four films: “Jali Nyama Suso,” “Music of the Mande Parts I & II,” “Salif Keita: Destiny of a Noble Outcast,” and “Djembefola.” Ethnomusicology 40(1): 174-78. Editor’s correction in Ethnomusicology (1997) 41(2): 325-26.
1994 Review of African Classical Music and the Griot Tradition, by Tunde Jegede, and Tunde Jegede: Cycle of Reckoning, cassette recording. British Journal of Ethnomusicology 3: 113-114.
CD and Video Notes
2007 Liner Notes for CD: African Virtuoses: The Classic Guinean Guitar Group. Stern’s Africa, STCD 3024.
1999 Liner Notes for CD: Grand Papa Diabate: Guitar Extra Dry, Popular African Music, PAM AG 703.
1998 Liner Notes for CD: Djessou Mory Kante: guitare sèche, Popular African Music, PAM AG 701.
1996 Notes for five drumming selections from the Senegambia region, JVC/Smithsonian Folkways Video Anthology of Music and Dance of Africa, vol. 1: 42-45, vol. 2: 6-8.