(Fr. République du Benin) [formerly Dahomey].
Country in West Africa. Its frontiers, which cover an area of 112,622 km2 and which result from the colonial partition of Africa at the end of the 19th century, do not correspond to any natural boundaries. With a population of 6·22 million (2000 estimate), the country groups together a number of peoples among whom there was no sort of unity before their conquest. Lying north to south, Benin extends from the Niger to the Atlantic and forms a perpendicular cut through both the climatic zones and the West African societies that run from east to west, parallel to the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. From north to south, one moves progressively from dry, sparsely populated tropical regions to humid, densely populated equatorial regions. In the north-west a mountain massif that straddles Togo and Benin constitutes a region of its own.
1. Languages and ethnic groups.
2. Musical traditions of the main linguistic groups.
GILBERT ROUGET
Linguistically, Benin may be divided into three broad regions: the north, where most of some 25 different languages, spoken by peoples sometimes ethnically quite distinct from one another, belong to a linguistic group called Gur, and the south, where an equivalent number of languages forms two quite separate groups, presently labelled Tadoid (or Gbe) and Yoruboid. Tadoid languages are part of a greater linguistic group called Kwa, extending westward through Ghana to Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia. Yoruboid languages are part of another group called Benue-Congo, extending eastward through Nigeria and Cameroon. Responding to this great diversity of languages, lands and climates, Benin is equally ethnically diverse. These linguistically divided regions interpenetrate at certain points and to varying degrees and often form enclaves. Each region is composed of several subgroups with their own characteristics (fig.1).
Throughout the country, with the exception of the north-western mountainous region of Atakora, more or less centralized and stable organizations of the kingship type have imposed themselves on regional populations since colonial times, thus giving birth to strata in the society, each with, at least partly, its own musical repertory. Another division is that separating initiated and non-initiated people, with, again, important consequences concerning music. All this, together with the cultural differences between men's and women's musical practices, as well as those between young people and adults, results in a highly diverse number of musical styles.
(ii) Yoruboid-speaking peoples.
Benin, §3: Modern developments
(‘Tadoid’: from Tado, capital of the ancient Aja kingdom, located in Togo). Their languages are closely related to Ewe, spoken in Togo and eastern Ghana, and they occupy the whole of the coastal region and the greater part of the south of Benin. Although this region may be subdivided historically, culturally and musically into provinces corresponding to ancient kingdoms, it will be treated here as a whole.
A type of xylophone, the largest known, is found between Tori and Porto Novo (fig.2). It is in fact two log xylophones juxtaposed but forming an inseparable unit. The larger instrument is placed across an earth pit. It comprises seven to ten keys, of which the largest is a beam about 150 cm long, the smallest about 90 cm long. The musician sits on the edge of the pit with the four keys of lowest pitch on his left and the rest on his right. He strikes the instrument with two beaters of different shape, material and weight, the heavier being held in the left hand. The smaller xylophone is placed opposite. This smaller instrument comprises eight keys and is played by two musicians. The two xylophones are tuned differently: the keys of the small one are tuned to regularly ascending pitches, while the keys of the large one are tuned to pitches arranged in a saw-tooth fashion. The two xylophones form a sacred instrument that is brought out only on certain occasions and for certain vodun (gods).
Between Savalou and Porto Novo another instrument is found that is unique to this region, although a related form is used in parts of neighbouring Nigeria; it is the raft zither with bound strings (fig.3). This is relatively large, about 50 cm long by 20 cm wide, usually with 12 strings in two groups of six. It is an idiochord made from a number of palm stems tied together to form a flat board or raft; each string is a raised strip of a stem to which it remains attached at either end. The strings are held taut by two transverse bridges, one at each end of the instrument, and are stopped by sliding rings. They are bound by a ribbon of reed wound tightly round each string to weight it and thus lower its pitch. This initial tuning, determined by the weight of the string, is modified by varying the tension with the sliding rings. A small reed stem that serves as a buzzer is attached to each string.
Although it is gradually disappearing, the raft zither is often played with the bark flute and is used to accompany singing. A bark zither with a single string, used as a musical toy by children, is made from a palm stem that is much longer than those used for the raft zither. The centre of the stem is placed on a resonator made of an inverted half-gourd resting on the ground. The instrument is played by two people: one strikes the string with two fine sticks while the other stops it with a knife blade (Rouget, 1982).
Another instrument is the notched flute made of a liana stem that has been detached by heat. It has three finger-holes burnt in its length. The top of the pipe has a V-shaped notch and the bottom is partly closed by a small circular piece of gourd. In the 18th century, the King of Abomey granted a Whydah family the privilege of forming a bark flute ensemble to accompany long strophic songs performed by a chorus of women. Hunters use wooden whistles with a crescent-shaped mouthpiece and transverse bore. Side-blown ivory horns are played in honour of kings and princes by musicians who belong to their suite. The secret society of ‘night hunters’ uses large, side-blown oxhorns, which are played with a quite different technique.
The iron bell, which appears in several different forms, and the drum are the most frequently used musical instruments. The bell is used in every instrumental ensemble and often by itself to provide the rhythmic accompaniment to the singing. The bell that is used for secular purposes is made from a folded sheet of iron with its sides hammered and soldered together and extended by a shaft that forms a handle. It is struck with a wooden stick. Certain bells, dating from about the 17th century, are larger and up to 90 cm in length. The rhythm produced by the bell is a combination of one short and one long beat, in a ratio of two to three. This is the basis of what Jones called the ‘standard pattern’ of a large number of African rhythms. The bell used for religious music is made in the same general way, but is in fact a double bell consisting of two bells, side by side, joined at their vertices. These two bells are of unequal height and produce an approximate interval of a 7th. Other clapperless bells in secular use are made from a folded sheet of metal without a handle. They are often used in pairs and are recognized as being male and female, as are the double bells described above. Certain cults use bells that are struck inside and are cornet-shaped, slightly open in their length. The most common form is a single bell, but multiple bells are also found.
Rattles are of wickerwork containing rattling objects or are gourds strung with beads, shells or bones; both types have handles. Wickerwork rattles are usually shaken in pairs, one being held in each hand; gourds are played singly and are either shaken or hit against the palm of the other hand. The wide-mesh net with which the gourd is strung is knotted with beads if the instrument is secular, with cowries or snake vertebrae if it is sacred. The lamellophone used for entertainment has five or six small tongues made of iron; the sound-box is made of wood and is quite large.
There is a remarkable variety of membranophones. Da Cruz (1954) briefly described about 40 of them; these differ in the material and method of construction, the shape and height of their bodies, the methods of fixing the skins and the manner in which they are played. Most of them are single-skin drums and the membrane is always attached indirectly. The body is made either of wood or pottery; in the latter case the skin is attached by means of a wickerwork frame which almost entirely encloses the body. Certain instruments used at the Abomey court are of the same type as those found among the Asante (Ashanti) of Ghana and the Baoulé (Baule) of Côte d'Ivoire. They are drums played in pairs of male and female instruments resting obliquely on stakes and struck with forked sticks. These drums are used to sound the praise-names of kings and princes, the praise-names also being dance motifs.
Like all the Kwa languages, the Tadoid or Gbe (i.e. Ajagbe or Aja-Gbe, Fongbe or Fon-Gbe, Gungbe or Gun-Gbe, Mahigbe or Maxi-Gbe etc.) languages are tonal languages. The drums ‘talk’ by reproducing the inflections of the language, but in fact the words that are drummed are not identified unless the total phrase is itself already known; the patterns of sound are thus recognized rather than understood. Whether two sticks, a stick and a hand or two hands are used, the language tones are drummed by different types of opposition: either an opposition of place by striking the centre or the edge of the membrane, or an opposition of stroke through the use of ‘checked’ or ‘unchecked’ actions, or ‘muted’ or ‘free’ beats (in Jones's terms). The general principles of the system are described by Rouget (RdM, 1964). An ensemble of drums is generally composed of one ‘talking drum’ or pair of drums that jointly ‘talk’ and one or more accompanimental drums that are usually smaller. The ensemble is completed by a variable number of iron bells and rattles.
Among the small accompanimental drums, one is played with two sticks of different shape (fig.4): the right-hand stick is long and thin and the left-hand stick is in the shape of a small bow with a string made from a narrow strip of leather. One end of the bow is used either to stop the skin, which is struck with the other stick, or to obtain a different beat. Another type of drum found in this region is the rectangular frame drum (Schaeffner, 1958). Certain types of drum are reserved for particular uses, as were the war drums in the past. Secular and sacred drums are not always distinguished by their shape, but by whether or not they have been consecrated.
For funeral rituals, which occupy a very important place in the life of these peoples, different types of water-drum are used. The instrument consists of a rather large vessel, in principle of pottery, containing water on which floats an inverted half-gourd that is struck with a stick. The water-drum is usually played in pairs; it is accompanied by a variety of other rhythm instruments, the ensemble being used to accompany the singing and dancing during the vigils that follow interment or the celebrations that mark the end of mourning.
The percussion pots played by the queens at the courts of Abomey and Porto Novo have sometimes been wrongly included in the category of funeral instruments. These consist of large pottery vessels with rather narrow necks. They are placed on the ground in front of the player who strikes the mouth of each instrument with a type of leather fan, or sometimes with a wickerwork fan similar to that used to fan a fire (fig.5). The instrument produces a hollow sound, which provides the ensemble with a beat akin to a basic pulse. Among the Gun in Porto Novo, it is used to accompany the songs and dances of the young queens at the king's court, and of young princesses among other branches of the royal family. Queens and princesses dance leaning on metal staves decorated with rings that jingle to the rhythm of their dance steps (Rouget, 1971; fig.6). Music and dances accompanied by the percussion pots may be performed at festivities in memory of the dead, but they are performed just as often on other occasions as they do not have a particularly funereal character and, unlike those which are accompanied by water-drums, they do not incur any of the prohibitions connected with burial rituals (Rouget, IMSCR 1964).
In these areas, where the population density is one of the highest in Africa and where traditions remain very much alive, there is an intense social life. Birth, marriage, death, seasonal rituals, collective work, district or village festivities, ancestor worship or ceremonies for the vodun, all provide an opportunity for music-making. Each occasion and each ritual has its own music, and each god and each family has its own musical repertory. There is therefore a great variety of genres, each containing many pieces. Purely instrumental music exists, for example, in the use of iron bells, which are struck while a grave is being dug, as also does purely vocal music, like the songs that are sung twice a day for nine successive days over the grave of a man or for seven successive days over the grave of a woman.
Music, however, is for the most part performed by a combination of instruments and voices with a wide range of possible combinations. Singing is always monophonic; as far as is known, polyphonic music is not found in the Tadoid areas. For certain choral songs, whether secular or sacred, the chorus performs in unison and unfolds the melody in an absolutely linear form; but for other songs the melodic line is enriched, almost thickened, by all sorts of improvised ornaments (sung, spoken, shouted and ululated), which are of a rhythmic rather than a melodic character (Koudjo, 1988). This vocal heterophony is practised only in the lively songs that generally accompany frenzied dances characterized by the violent, almost disjointed shaking of the shoulders. The singers clap their hands in a deafening manner or beat their breasts fiercely with both fists, roaring at the same time. With the performers well stimulated by good food and drink, these songs of rejoicing, whether accompanied only by a beer bottle struck with a nail or by drums, bells and rattles, give an impression of unbridled exuberance.
In contrast, other songs are extremely restrained. They consist of long sequences of stanzas, carefully composed both poetically and musically and remarkable for the length of their melodic phrases. The style of these ‘long songs' (as they are called) varies from region to region, but they are on the whole epic–lyric compositions, full of allusions to the history of the clan, the village or the kingdom (Rouget, 1971). Some are sung by men, generally in pairs, who sing stanzas in turn and who are assisted by ‘prompters’ in case they fall victim to the magic machinations of an enemy and their memories fail them. This type of repertory is derived, at least in part, from the ‘challenge songs’ that were cast from village to village in the past. Others are sung by choruses of women. All are learnt and rehearsed at length before being performed in public. Performance of long songs by men takes place during popular concerts for audiences of several hundred people and by women during court ceremonies in the intimacy of the royal palace. These melodies are fundamentally tetratonic but with a tendency to pentatonicism (Rouget, 1996). Every long song is followed without a pause by a short song in quick tempo composed of a single stanza repeated a fair number of times. Sometimes this second part, which corresponds to a change in the dance, is more rhythmic than melodic, performed in styles reminiscent of speech song. Side by side with this music there exists an immense repertory of smaller songs of very different types, notably the chantefable (Rouget, 1962).
Although it has much in common with secular music, religious music is distinct from it in two respects. In the first place, the cult of the vodun gives rise to ceremonies in which music and dance form an integral part of an extremely elaborate ritual, which is developed as a structure in time and which, strictly speaking, constitutes a theatrical enactment. These ceremonies are thus a series of spectacles that include purely instrumental episodes, sung passages, recitatives, spoken or declaimed passages, dance sequences and mimed actions. A series of events forms a number of ‘scenes’ or ‘acts’ performed with magnificent costumes, displays of colour, a variety of protagonists, spectators and the scenic organization of the space. These combine to make these ceremonies a piece of musical theatre in the full sense of the term.
In the second place, the initiation into the cult of the vodun is performed in secluded places, each known as ‘couvent’ (a house of death), so called because as the initiates enter it they undergo a ritual death. The severe reclusion that the initiates undergo, sometimes for several years, is spent particularly in apprenticeship in a whole repertory of chants in a secret language. These chants are truly sacred; on no account can they be sung after final departure from the ‘couvent’. The sacred chants are divided into the two categories of thanksgiving and quest chants. Each family of vodun, if not each vodun, has his own musical style. Taken as a whole, this sacred music shows three noteworthy features: an unusual vocal technique, the use of chromaticism and rigorous unaccompanied performance (Rouget, 1961). However, thanksgiving and quest songs and chants have quite different formal characteristics, the thanksgiving items generally being lengthy, often more than ten minutes, and the quest items being short, of the order of one to two minutes. They all, however, consist of highly elaborate forms (Rouget, 1990). They are learnt for a long time, rehearsed each day under the direction of a woman belonging to the hierarchy of ‘féticheurs’, who acts as choirleader, and must be performed perfectly. The thanksgiving chants are distinguished by their slow tempo, the length of the stanzas and the rigour and asceticism of the melodic pattern, which is broken by carefully calculated silences. They give an impression of intense spirituality.
With its totally opposite spirit and style, the music of the secret society of night hunters avails itself of a particular vocal technique, which also distinguishes it from the rest of the repertory. The vocal delivery of vodun song owes its distinctiveness to a specific vocal placement and tension (yet to be authoritatively described); but the calls of the night hunters, made back and forth among themselves as they take cover in the darkness at the bends in roads or lanes, are produced at the back of the throat so as to give a low and raucous utterance. This disguising of the voice is further accentuated by the effect of resonators of oxhorn placed in front of the mouth, or by the use of mirlitons. Moving about naked in the dark, the night hunters sometimes meet for processions on the roads. When they do this, they intone songs, in warrior style, in fierce voices and accompany them with long bellowings on their horns and with bells and iron tubes beaten frenziedly. High-pitched shrieks, strange or comical sounds, bursts of laughter, interjections emitted in cavernous voices are all mixed together, for the night hunters are mysterious beings who live in the sea and who speak the language of another world.
Benin, §3: Modern developments
The eastern part of their territory is closely related, linguistically and ethnologically, to the neighbouring region of Nigeria, where the Yoruba form a people of several million inhabitants (see Yoruba music and Nigeria). Since certain aspects of Yoruba culture, notably religion, have been maintained to a greater extent on Benin's side of the border, the corresponding music that has disappeared in Nigeria is still practised in Benin.
Like the cult of the vodun among the Fon and the Gun in Benin, that of the orisha among the Yoruba gives rise to magnificent ceremonies (Rouget, 1958), but ordered in a different way. Divine possession is more prominent, performers' roles are more individual, and although dance retains an important role, chanted speech plays a greater part. Chanted with clear language, but using texts that are often very difficult to understand, the liturgy of the orisha is imprinted with the same spirituality as that of the vodun (Laloum, Rouget, 1965). Whereas the Tadoid languages have only level tones, the softer inflexions of Yoruba, which has both level and gliding tones, give greater flexibility to the melody.
In the Yoruba area, the secret society called oro is comparable to that of the zangbeto, i.e. the ‘night hunters’ in the Tadoid area. The two societies use different musical instruments, but the music generally relates to the same aesthetic. Previously the oro was entrusted with the administration of justice, with the pursuit of wrong-doers, and with execution of those condemned to death. He makes himself known by his terrifying voice, which is that of the bullroarer, an instrument that may under no circumstances be seen by the uninitiated. His wife sings in a plaintive voice, which is produced by placing a mirliton made from a membrane of spider's cocoon in front of the mouth. Sometimes, in contrast, she yells in a piercing voice. For certain rituals an ensemble of bullroarers is used, in which several instruments of widely varying length are played together, the largest whirling slowly round and round to give a very low-pitched voice, that of the ‘grandfather’, and the smallest whirling rapidly round and giving a very high-pitched voice, that of the ‘dog’. These artistically combined buzzings are supplemented by the continuous playing of two enormous drums and that of a third very small drum, the skin of which is very taut and whipped with fine sticks so that it whistles almost as much as it resonates. From time to time, the shout ‘oro’ resounds, sung out in unison by all the participants to hail the miracle that is to be accomplished in the dark, the visible signs of which are spectacularly inscribed in the forest and will the next day stupefy the layman. Sacred music would thus seem to present in the Yoruba area as well as in the Tadoid area two opposed aspects: that of the unaccompanied chants for the vodun and the orisha; and the music of the secret societies, linked to the masks and the night. The latter, as much through the instruments used as by the use made of them, may be compared to the music of the ‘sacred forest’ of the Toma people in Guinea.
The Yoruba friction drum is particularly noteworthy (fig.7). It is made from the stem of a rush, which is inserted into the opening of a large gourd of water placed on the ground. The rush is held with one hand and rubbed with the other. The instrument, played in pairs, is used by members of the Ogboni society, which, in the past, was associated with the oro. Another secret society, known as egungun (‘voices of the dead’) or ‘ghosts’, plays an important role in funeral rites. The manner by which the ‘ghosts’ disguise their voices to sing in the course of their ceremonies, which resemble ritual theatre, is a noteworthy feature of music associated with masks. Completely hidden beneath speckled material cut from rich brocades, the ‘ghosts’ sing with raucous and extremely low-pitched voices that closely resemble those used for the ‘leaf-masks’ of the Basarí (Basari) of eastern Senegal for their agrarian rituals or those of the Tsogho (Tsogo) of Gabon for the ceremonies of Bwete (Bwiti).
The vocal music of a few peoples belonging to the western area of Yoruboid languages in Benin differs greatly from the music of the eastern side and more generally from the rest of the Yoruba area. Known as Itcha, Ife and Ana, these peoples, whose territory stretches also to Togo, sing polyphonically, an unknown practice among other members of the Yoruboid linguistic group. Their polyphony shows an extensive use of the interval of a 4th and is very different from the polyphony in 3rds of the Asante of Ghana or, among others, the Baoulé of Côte d'Ivoire. It also allows the voices greater mobility. Certain liturgical chants make a very particular use of chromaticism (Rouget, 1961).
Among Itchas, part-singing is, as far as is known, a musical practice of women. Young girls of 10–12 master this polyphonic singing. As a game or to accompany certain kinds of collective work, they sing short songs of elaborate strophic structures, one after another with quick tempos, and they are rigorously performed. Some girls also play a musical game in which two performers hold a long, hollow calabash tube. With their backs against a tree trunk, they stand side by side on one leg, keeping the other leg folded so they can beat the lower end of the tube against the thigh, while alternately opening and closing the upper end with the left hand in order to obtain two different sounds. The result is a rhythmic counterpoint in two parts made of a gentle and quiet series of bubbling sounds accompanied by the soft buzzing sound of a bead necklace coiled around the top of the calabash. Another game consists of playing a rudimentary kind of xylophone. This instrument is made of four short, stout and coarse rods of wood set across the two outstretched legs of the performer – usually a boy – who sits on the ground. These rods come from four different trees of four different densities and, therefore, yield differences in tone but not in tuning. This kind of xylophone exists elsewhere in West Africa (Rouget, 1969), notably among the Bariba of northern Benin.
Benin, §3: Modern developments
With the exception of the Dendi people and even more so the Fula (Fulani, FulBe or Fulɓe), who are scattered all over the region and have their own language and music, the entire population of the northern half of Benin belongs to the linguistic group called Gur. Nevertheless, a sharp distinction exists between east and west. The mountainous west, the Atakora, is inhabited by different small populations known as Somba (Sola or Solamba).
These societies are segmentary, with no central power, social stratification or people specialized in music-making. The common instrumentarium includes: drums (principally cylindrical with a snare), iron bells (struck with an iron ring or consisting of a hoe blade), lithophones (often described as rock gongs), rattles, wood whistles with short or long tubes, side-blown flutes with finger-holes blown in solo, duo or larger ensembles, side-blown horns (antelope horn) and idioglot clarinets made of millet stem, but this inventory is certainly incomplete. There exists at least one known example (Duvelle, 1963) of a musical bow with a gourd resonator, an uncommon type of instrument in this part of Africa.
Rituals of different kinds, notably for agrarian or for age-specific festivities, make use of only a few of these instruments. However, for a great collective event, such as an important funeral ceremony (Arom, 1976), the whole of it may be mobilized, with the entire village involved. None of the instruments are tuned to each other. Each has its own individual tone colour together with its own way of being blown, struck or beaten. The sound is rhythmically organized. Despite a high degree of freedom and improvisation, each instrumentalist plays a complementary part. To the outside listener, this sounds like a rhythmic polyphony of tone colours, but for participants in the ceremony, this kaleidoscope of resonances is not only musical, it is also highly symbolic. Singing plays, of course, its part in the collective performance and takes two forms: dirges, which are long sentences sung by a woman in a speech-song manner, and dancing songs, which are brief repetitive melodies in call-and-response form.
The other part of north Benin, i.e. its central and eastern regions, differs from the west in that it was conquered by peoples who came from eastern regions located in what is now Nigeria. Among the different kingdoms of this area, known under the name of Borgu, Nikki is the most renowned. The king of Nikki had a powerful cavalry and reigned over an important population, the Baatonu, often called Bariba, whose language is spoken in most of this northern area of Benin. Bariba thus form a stratified society, with both nobles and commoners (and at one time freemen and slaves). Religious life also takes several forms: an autochthonous religion, Islam and the bori, a cult where possession trance plays a central role, borrowed from the neighbouring Songhai.
The music of the Bariba people is similar to the music of the Atakora peoples but has its own peculiarities. One example among many is the important role played by different kinds of rattles, the making of which is elaborate (Bio Tanné, 1986). Another particularity occurs in the music and dance called teke, which is performed for the enthronement not only of the great king but also of local chiefs. It is a hieratic dance performed by men, accompanied by drums. Performers sing while dancing and knocking together rods made of hard and sonorous wood, carved with care and often shaped in the form of a phallus.
Apart from the people's music, to which teke belongs, there exists a completely different court music performed only for kings. The ensemble that plays for the enthronement of the paramount king of Nikki is large, consisting of 16 long trumpets and four kettledrums (Bertho, 1951). These trumpets, called Kakaki, are the same as those played for the Hausa emirs of neighbouring Nigeria. They are telescopic tubes of metal, and their overall length may vary between 2·5 and 4·25 metres (Ames and King, 1971). Men who blow them are professionals, members of a Hausa caste of musicians. As Schaeffner (1952) has shown, these instruments, of Middle Eastern origin, were introduced to Africa with Islam. At Kuande, capital of a smaller Bariba kingdom, the ensemble that performs every Friday (the Muslim day of prayer) in honour of the king is composed of only four kakaki and four drums, two of traditional cylindrical form and two of double-headed hourglass form. This last type of drum is probably also related to Islam. Music of this weekly ceremony requires the participation of singers, one of whom accompanies himself with a single-string fiddle (Arom, 1976). Singers as well as instrumentalists belong to a caste of musicians. The performance itself consists of vocal pieces in different styles and of different forms of praise for the king alternating with purely instrumental sections.
The aforementioned single-string fiddle, of which not only the bow but also the string is made of horsehair, is the principal musical instrument used for possession dances during the bori ritual. Tunes played by these fiddles (several may play together) call divinities to come down from above and be incarnated by their ‘horses’. A set of calabash drums supplies the rhythmic element of the music. With this cult and its instruments, one approaches the Songhai-Zerma area of civilization from where they originate. (See Niger as well as Songhai music for more detailed discussion.) The music of the Fula, a nomadic people scattered over northern Benin (Arom, 1975), is treated under The Gambia and FulBe music.
The above description of the music of Benin corresponds to the traditional features of this music such as existed around 1975. Music, like everything else, changes, and radios and cassettes are now heard everywhere. Young musicians produce new music inspired either by local traditions or, in contrast, by turning their backs on them. Around 1980 a society named ‘Union Nationale des Compositeurs-Chanteurs Traditionnels du Bénin’ (UNCCTB) was created (Koudjo, 1989), and small firms now release their recordings under various labels. For lack of further information, a fuller discussion of this aspect of musical life in contemporary Benin cannot yet be attempted.
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B. Koudjo: La chanson populaire dans les cultures Fon et Gun du Bénin: aspects sémiotiques et sociologiques (diss., U. of Paris, 1989)
G. Rouget: ‘Struttura de un canto iniziatico del Bénin’, Ethnomusicologica, ed. D. Carpitella (Siena, 1989), 205–7
G. Rouget: ‘La répétition comme universel du langage musical: à propos d'un chant initiatique béninois’, La musica come linguaggio universale, ed. R. Pozzi (Florence, 1990), 189–201
Porto-Novo: ballet de cour des femmes du roi, videotape, dir. G. Rouget, CNRS (Paris, 1996)
G. Rouget: Un roi africain et sa musique de cour: chants et danses du palais à Porto Novo sous le règne de Gbè (1948–1976) (Paris, 1996) [incl. discs]