Contextualizing the music and politics of Oumou Sangaré

Oumou Sangaré has used her voice to take on local political and social issues over her 30-plus-year career as a singer. However, those stances can be lost on global listeners who lack emic understandings of Sangaré’s context – the local music and politics of Wassoulou. Scholars in music education note the importance of contextualizing the musical cultures introduced to students, and this issue is paramount if the inclusion of world music is to be a decolonizing praxis. Considering the music of Oumou Sangaré, this article demonstrates that while metadata (lyrics, translations, interviews, profiles and media) can be found to teach and contextualize Sangaré’s music in the classroom, information on contemporary musicians is not always easily accessible in the digital and streaming age of music mediation. Further work is needed to provide music educators with increased access to this critical information for including world music and musicians in curricula.