Date of Award
5-12-1991
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Abstract
What is funana? The short answer is that it is a musical genre from the Cape Verde Islands. A more thorough answer to this question could take many forms depending on who you are and what your relationship to the music is. My goal has been to understand, . identify, and describe funana I s essential features from many different angles based on what I have learned about it from Cape Verdeans, books, films, recordings, and from- my own observations.
I have arranged this paper into sections that represent three different views of funana. The first focuses on funana in southern New England: I describe an occasion when funana was performed and present some ideas and general information about Cape Verdean music culture in New England and elsewhere. This section was researched through a combination of participant-observation fieldwork in the Cape Verdean night clubs in New Bedford and the Providence area, interviews with the Cape Verdean musician, Norberto Tavares, and through the study of written sources on cape Verde.