“Essence” by Wizkid featuring Tems was Rolling Stone’s best song of 2021. As a collaboration between two of the biggest artists from Nigeria “Their performances are distinct yet seamless, joining together over a melange of Nineties American R&B, U.K. Afroswing, and percussive Nigerian Afrobeats.” the magazine described. 

This mixture of styles is an example of transculturation, being that the artists are combining elements of foreign music with Afrobeats. One of the main reasons why they are doing this could be to give their music a more global appeal, as the U.S. and the U.K. are two of the biggest markets in the world for music.

If you like this song, I strongly encourage you to check out more of Wizkid and Tems’ music!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/50-best-songs-of-2021-list-1260934/wizkid-feat-tems-essence-1265894/

In today’s class we talked about the reading The Origins of the Modern World by Robert Marks. We started by looking at the 4 interrelated themes that Marks thinks define the modern world. Those themes are industrialization/capitalism, nation-states, the gap between the wealthiest and poorest parts of the world, and the impact of humans on the environment. 

We then discussed the idea of eurocentrism and the rise of the West. Eurocentrism is the view that Europe is historically advantaged with some special quality(‘s) that have allowed them to progress further than the rest of the world and become the main agent of world history. This idea that the West was uniquely gifted or special was also used to justify and explain the colonization of other countries through a narrative called the rise of the west. We then went on to talk about what is wrong with eurocentrism and how the terms contingency, accident, and conjecture are related to the dominance of the West.