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Afrobeat Journeys: Tracing the Musical Archive in Sefi Atta’s A Bit of Difference

ABSTRACT Sefi Atta has recently claimed that she considers herself an Afrobeat author, because she started writing in 1997, a month before Fela Kuti died and his music became more widely available outside of Nigeria. I contend that in A Bit of Difference (2013) Afrobeat music embodies the cultural signifier of transnational and local influences in contemporary Lagos and other Western urban spaces. The main character of the novel, Deola Bello, was born in Lagos, grew up in London, and occasionally travels to Atlanta on business trips as an auditor for an international charity organization. The protagonist Bello’s travels across countries and cultures establishes an intercultural dialogue based on African and African diasporic music, ranging from juju to naija hip hop. The first part of this essay underscores the cultural influence of Afrobeat on Atta’s writing, and presents an overview of the critical readings of music that highlight socio-political meanings in the Anglophone black Atlantic. The second half maps the historical geography of songs in the novel and their contextual significance, which serve to interpret the afrodiasporic consciousness embedded in the text.