"Kaneka, musique en mouvement" is the first book about the emblematic music of today's Kanak culture.
In South-East Pacific Melanesia, New-Caledonia is a French archipelago. Native Kanak people have been living there for 3 millenniums. They got French citizenship after 2e world war, after 150 years of hard colonisation. Still, they had to struggle to get their culture recognised. They even formed a separate government between 1984 and 1988.
Kaneka was created during that time as a way of identifying Kanak culture on the world's cultural map. The music blends ancient local rhythms and vocal harmonies with electric reggae and rock instrumentations. It reflects the deep roots of Kanak civilisation, so different from the Western's.
Through interviews with most of the prominent kaneka artists and professionnals, this book is an authentic account of the birth and evolution of kaneka music untill today. It contains also more than 50 illustrated portraits of the main kaneka acts since the birth of this music.
"Kaneka, musique en mouvement" (in French, 228 pages, 24€), published by Poemart and ADCK-CCT, distributed by Irma from october 8th 2013 on.
article posted by:François Bensignor, IRMA