Steven Feld (Anthropology and Music, University of New Mexico) October 23, 2013

Drawing on their work with Accra’s La Drivers Union, Nunu and Feld’s film chronicles Ghana’s intertwined histories of colonial-era lorry driving and the invention of Por Por, a music for squeeze-bulb truck horns played uniquely for union driver funerals. A documentary radio version of the film and book, commissioned by RadioAtelje, will be broadcast on YLE Finland in Fall 2013. Nii Yemo Nunu is a photographer, archivist, and oral historian in La, Accra, Ghana. Steven Feld is a musician, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Music at University of New Mexico. Nunu & Feld’s previous work together includes the film A Por Por Funeral for Ashirifie, recipient of the Prix Bartók at the Paris International Festival Jean Rouch in 2010. They also produced the CD Por Por: Honk Horn Music of Ghana, for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2007 as a US 50th Independence Anniversary gift to Ghana.?Sponsored by the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music, the Program in Ethnomusicology, and the IHC’s African Studies RFG.

More information: http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/the-story-of-por-por/