HOLY COW LOOK AT THOSE SOURCES

Wassup my musical homies.
So I read the comments you guys left me (shoutout to Ana and Chelsie)

and after some deep soul-searching

I figured you guys were probably right about my proposal being too broad. I was too excited.

So bearing that in mind, I've amended my initial proposal to the following. I will attempt to analyze the underground of hip-hop specifically, it being the genre most likely to accurately reflect Western influences, precisely because it's a Western art form. The West's contribution to rap is very clearly defined, and thus it becomes easier to strain out the purely African characteristics present in the African version. I don't want to narrow down my geographical scope, though - I feel it's appropriate for a final project.

SICK SOURCE GAME ENGAGED

African Hip-Hop Web Exposure - This one is awesome. It pointed me to africanhiphop.com, which is basically a live feed of exactly what I'm researching. The guy who runs it seems really cool, too - I might try and hit him up for an interview via email.
The Hip-Hop Generation - This will sprinkle some social awareness in here. Evaluating music in its own right is all well and good, but to understand it I need to know the environment it was created in.
African Underground Vol. 1: Hip Hop Senegal - Unorthodox as a scholarly source, I know - but this topic calls for hands-on research. Limited to the Senegalese scene, sadly, but it appears to be a vibrant one.
Power of Unity This 2000 Pan-African Movement hip-hop compilation is probably the strongest primary source I've found. Also tenuous as a scholarly source, but too good to pass up. I've already requested it, so hands off.
The Hiplife In Ghana - Interesting in its promise of an evaluation of the hip-hop culture that tends to be inseparable from the music itself - here I can research all the ancillary bits of African hip-hop and how they (break boys and DJs, particularly) used the new forms to showcase what they already had.

Bundle up.

RESEARCH IS COMING.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

WELCOME TO MY BLOG.

It is about African music and I hope that appeals to you.^{let's be real tho if you're reading this you're probably in the class too}
So introductions aside.

I had a preliminary research project proposal due on Tuesday which I didn't do due to extreme levels of I forgot to, so here's a makeup proposal that's serve as my final proposal.
The thing that's stuck out the most to me about the African music we've studied so far is that it is inexorably linked to America. It occurred to me relatively shortly after that that that was because I'm studying it...in America.
So I thought - if all the music that comes to America's attention is already tainted by the consumerist pandering it takes to get America's attention, then if I want to get at the heart of what African music is about...
^{Which I do.}
...then I need to get at the music that America hasn't gotten its grubby little hands on.
Which leads me to my proposal.
I'm going to research the African underground. Every artist, in every country, in every genre that the Internet has access to. And when I'm done, I'm going to depict it as a landscape however I think will represent it best. So.

HERE WE GO.