This article critically engages with the discipline of African musics in the academy. It examines the process of curriculum transformation of the African music section at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town since 2005 as an emergent curriculum model for an integrated approach to the teaching of African musics at universities. The adoption of this curriculum predated the 2015–2016 fervent calls in South Africa to decolonise the university, which necessitates an approach to teaching African musics not rooted in its colonial past. As is known, the study and research of African musics in the academy partly stemmed from the efforts of European (and later US) researchers who often received support through the British colonial administration and much of their output seemed to be focused on convincing their peers about the virtues of ‘African music’ and the study thereof. Despite this history, there is evidence to support the fact that in most African universities, the music departments are far more interested in teaching Western art music and its virtues. In recognition of the calls by students for radical changes to the curricula in South African universities, the article seeks to answer the question ‘how do we consider ongoing changes to the knowledge both received and produced in this field?’

本文批判性地讨论了学院中的非洲音乐学科。它研究了开普敦大学南非音乐学院自 2005 年以来非洲音乐系的课程转型过程，作为大学非洲音乐教学综合方法的新兴课程模式。该课程的采用早于 2015-2016 年南非对大学去殖民化的强烈呼吁，这需要一种不植根于殖民历史的非洲音乐教学方法。众所周知，学院对非洲音乐的学习和研究部分源于欧洲（以及后来的美国）研究人员的努力，他们经常通过英国殖民政府获得支持，他们的大部分成果似乎都集中在说服他们的同行关于“非洲音乐”的优点及其研究。尽管有这段历史，但有证据支持这样一个事实，即在大多数非洲大学中，音乐系对教授西方艺术音乐及其优点更感兴趣。鉴于学生呼吁对南非大学的课程进行彻底改革，本文试图回答以下问题：“我们如何看待该领域接收和产生的知识的持续变化？