Kuduro, Digital Music and Lifestyle in Diaspora

Abstract

Kuduro is a style of dance and electronic music that emerged in Angola in the nineties, in a peculiar social context. Initially consumed and produced by young people from the periphery of the city of Luanda, it became a means of expression, entertainment, socialization and subsistence, through which they became autonomous and symbolically transformed their realities of scarcity. With access to communication technologies and movements of global dispersion of people and information, kuduro also spread to other countries and gained other meanings. Here, I analyze the characteristics of its context of origin, the conditions and implications of such dispersal, and disputes over the meanings of style.