Women Zed Beats

Tabitha Lilungwe, a mass communications graduate from the University of Zambia and content creator at Bloggers of Zambia, explained to me in an interview that “modernity has to do with popular culture and being up to date with what is trending…dressing, music, and having access to the Internet” (June 2020). In a separate interview, singer Jane Banda aka Adasa observes that “modernity is the lifestyle of nowadays...technology, fashion, infrastructure...” (June 2020). Matimba Choombe, Program’s Officer at Bloggers of Zambia who I interviewed on the same day I interviewed Lilungwe, remarks that “modernity …has elements of advancement…value addition, and  trends…improving on…processes, state of being…” (June 2020) Anthropologist Debra Spitulnik (2008) notes that modernity in Zambia is the desire to move toward a better life and a more progressive society away from traditional life. “…Equated with novelty or newness, the present, urbanity, action, style, consumption, and progress (Spitulnik

WELCOME Welcome to my blog. This space is about my research with women musicians involved in Zambia's popular music genre,  Zed Beats .  Zed Beats   (colloquial for “Zambia’s Beats”), primarily popular among lower-middle-class youth, is an assemblage of both indigenous Zambia’s musical elements, and foreign musical influences drawn from R&B, reggae, rap, hip-hop, and other music styles from within Africa. Its production involves, as opposed to an ensemble, one person (the producer) performing, tracking, manipulating all or most of the instrumental parts of a piece of music. The producer usually makes use of samples from an electronic source or some music software. In  Zed Beats ,  the man behind the computer is the production team, sound engineer, and the band. Sung mostly in local languages and interpolated with some English, the genre often makes use of recycled drum patterns, and sometimes rhythmic and melodic phrases from previously released songs. These creative processes