Muslim communities in West Africa provide a unique space for conducting research on musical cultures since issues concerning religion, gender, tradition, economics, and family can all intersect in musical performances. In the capital city of Tamale in Ghana's Northern Region, which is part of an area called Dagbon, women of the Dagbamba culture are at the heart of these multiple spaces of intersection. This project investigates how women actively participate in culture and tradition through music, what it means to them, and how knowledge is transmitted through this practice. Through an ethnographic study of the roles women play in Dagbamba musical culture and specific musical genres (such as tora), I examine the performance of music in Dagbamba women's lives and culture. I am interested in the different knowledge(s) produced by women through their involvement with music. Additionally, I utilize feminist standpoint theory to highlight women's lived experiences in order to explore this under documented aspect of West African culture. This study considers how music and dance genres function in the negotiation of traditional and contemporary values, as well as how advice and history are passed down through generations of women. I posit that women have a unique, albeit underrepresented, position in Dagbamba culture and society, which is witnessed most dramatically in and around the home, and central markets where women engage in the buying and selling of wares, including everything from food to batteries, soap, spices, cloth, and shoes. Women's agency, knowledge, power, the complexities of their multiple roles in Dagbamba society and the home, and how this is reflected in vocal music and dance genres constitute the central focus of this dissertation.

Four audio and two video examples are included in this dissertation: audio example 1, Tora introduction song, "Oh ee yeei," performed by KaliTora, May 2011; audio example 2, Tora song, "Kambang Na," performed by KaliTora, May 2011; audio example 3, Tora song, "M'ma

yeei," performed by KaliTora, May 2011; audio example 4, Tora yi⁄i-ra song, "Lampoo," performed by KaliTora, May 2011; video example 1, Tora dance, performed by KaliTora, Zo Simli Naa Palace, Tamale, May 2011; video example 2, KaliTora singing "Yini To," Zo Simli Naa Palace, Tamale, May 2011.

The dùndún, or "talking drum," of southwestern Nigeria is a versatile speech surrogate used to reproduce the tones and inflections of the Yorùbá language. Through their daily recitations of history and oral literature, dùndún musicians have for centuries played an integral role in the social, religious, and political life of Yorùbá-speaking peoples. In an environment where oral performance is a predominant feature of social interaction, talking drummers control a key mechanism of public discourse. While enmeshed in hierarchies of title and seniority, as well as in inherited ideas of personhood and community, Yorùbá drummers exercise considerable influence over the discursive construction of daily social life. As their economic support system weakens, however, talking drummers and those who advocate for them are today presenting and representing the dùndún tradition in ways that maximize opportunities for translocal patronage. In their bid to find new patrons in the Nigerian government and private sector, musicians and culture brokers are, with some success, transforming the dùndún from an art of local value to a cultural heritage of national and global value. This practice has been further extended by talking drummers who now live or regularly pursue professional opportunities outside of Nigeria. Through a study of individual musicians and their communities in Nigeria and the United States, my dissertation examines how Yorùbá dùndún drummers, on one hand, reproduce their tradition and its social dynamics, and on the other, reinvent their trade so as to create social and economic value for it in increasingly wider contexts.