Storytelling through Popular Music: Social Memory, Reconciliation, and Intergenerational Healing in Oromia/Ethiopia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

- The ideas presented in the article about the roles and possibilities of music in political activism, are by no means new or original. However, the multidisciplinary research design and, particularly, the way the author has built a decolonial research agenda, as well as the careful analysis of memory work related to the video and its reception, makes this a very interesting article, an original study - and a story worth telling. The study can be positioned in many areas of research (e.g., ethnomusicology, youth studies, political studies, Ethiopian / Oromo studies) and it draws on various multidisciplinary traditions (e.g., memory studies, discussions on decolonization). Although some themes in the article  could have been explained in more detail, and resent scholarship on the social meanings of music  could have been better discussed in relation to the findings/ conclusions of the study, all the questions and issues addressed in the article are  sufficiently contextualized and dealt with. 

In the title and in the abstract the author talks about Oromia/Ethiopia, but in the introduction about "music in Africa" and "perspectives on African music". Referring to Africa (African music, arts, cultures....) as a kind of a single entity has been criticized so widely, for good reasons, that although the author deals with the particularities of "African music" and the diversity of African societies, cultures, and individual African musical traditions,  when talking about Oromo  Musical culture and tradition in more detail later in the article, here, in the first paragraph, the notion of "African music" should be either explained/contextualized or avoided. Discussion starting form p. 4 is  good and sufficient for the purposes of the analysis, therefore I think that the term "African music" may not be worth using in the beginning of this article

The abstract and what is told under the subtitle "Introduction" suggest that the analysis will focus (only, or mainly) on the music video (music, lyrics, and visual aspects of it). However, the author also quotes interviewees (p.5) and  from page 13 on starts to analyze reception of the video and discussions that it has raised on social media. The multidimensionality of the research agenda and the many, different kinds of  research materials  used in this study - i.e. the nature of this study as an ethnographic project - should be better clarified in the Introduction. 

• All citations in the text as well as the list of references must be checked carefully and errors must be corrected, for example,  "(Tedla 1994)" [p. 3, l. 128] is not included in the list of reference; "(Rastas & Reyes 2019)" is mentioned many times in the manuscript [e.g. p. 1, line 36; 38; 39; p.3, line 135 etc.] but it should be "(Rastas & Seye 2019)", as it is written  in the list of references.
• The analysis of the music video and the other materials is credible and interesting.
•  I particularly liked  the way the conclusions are presented: I interpret the author's ethos here as part of the decolonial agenda on this study. 

Author Response

Thank you so much for your positive and constructive feedback on my manuscript, now titled: “Storytelling through Popular Music: Social Memory, Reconciliation, and Intergenerational Healing in Oromia/Ethiopia”. I have addressed your comments and concerns carefully. Please find attached a note outlining how I attended your review suggestions (my response in BLOCK LETTERS).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a well-written paper that illuminates a challenging set of cultural/political conflicts in an area known in western circles only among specialists. Yet the conflicts between a dominant minority and subjugated majority represent a familiar pattern. The author focuses on a particular popular music video to show how that work epitomizes a generational response to the conflict. I find the video to be quite effective and emotionally engaging as an avatar of those themes. In general the theoretical framework of the paper is strong, and the system of references adequate to make the major points. There are two areas that I would suggest could use some shoring up:

One is the rather broad and generalized use of the terms "storytelling" and "musical storytelling." The paper gives quite minimal background on the traditional roots, styles, repertoires, and genres of Oromo storytelling and poetry. Thus the reader gets very little sense of how this contemporary refiguration of Oromo tradition either extends or breaks from those traditions. I would intuit the presence of a traditional connection, as the allegorical content of the lyrics bear a strong resemblance to the kinds of tropes that one finds in other subjugated national traditions, such as the Sky Woman vision poetry of Indigenous Ireland. Some background on this in the Ethiopian context would add depth to the study.

The second aspect is that the analysis of the effects of its mediation on the cultural impacts of the video could be strengthened. If as McLuhan has declared, "the medium is the message," what are the messages embodied in this music video as distributed via the YouTube platform that distinguish it from previous strata of popular political music-making? The consideration of this particular mediation could also be connected to that of Oromo traditional music and storytelling in order to provide a deeper local and global perspective.

Aside from those two deficit areas it is an interesting and valuable piece.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your positive and constructive feedback on my manuscript, now titled: “Storytelling through Popular Music: Social Memory, Reconciliation, and Intergenerational Healing in Oromia/Ethiopia”. I have addressed your comments and concerns carefully. Please find attached a note outlining how I attended each of the review suggestions (my response in BLOCK LETTERS). I also attach the revised manuscript that shows the changes in the article using track change functions. I hope that the revisions meet the requirement of Humanities and your expectations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see the file attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you so much for your positive and constructive feedback on my manuscript, now titled: “Storytelling through Popular Music: Social Memory, Reconciliation, and Intergenerational Healing in Oromia/Ethiopia”. I have addressed your comments and concerns carefully. Please find attached a note outlining how I attended each of the review suggestions (my response in BLOCK LETTERS). I also attach the revised manuscript that shows the changes in the article using track change functions. I hope that the revisions meet the requirement of Humanities and your expectations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf