the reality of things that pass by

Music has more of a social function [in Africa.] Therefore it is seldom that somebody says "This is beautiful" or "This is not" and tells you why. They most likely will say they like your music because they like you and they want to be on good terms with you.

But that's not really the point.

For the people I interviewed, music is not an "object", a "thing" or a phenomenon that you can evaluate, buy, judge, or analyze. It's rather a process, a collective groove, a living circumstance, a piece of identity, a vessel.

Sound artist Alessandro Bosetti, interviewed by Re:Sound re his African Feedback work, in which he played experimental music through headphones to West African villagers between Mali and Burkina Faso and recorded their reactions. The piece can be heard on the Re:Sound landing page -- regrettably they offer no permalink, so it will become more difficult to find over time.

A little bit farther along in the interview Bosetti tells this story:

Going back to memorable answers, probably the most memorable of all was from the old Ibe when I asked if a Bernard Parmegiani piece reminded him of a painting or a landscape. He said "This is neither like a painting nor a landscape, this is the reality of things that pass by." It was simply real for him, no matter how strange or unknown. It was not music, representation, art or whatever, it was simply the world.

There's no "strange" for somebody living in a Dogon village, they come from the sky, believe their ancestors had been on the moon much before Americans and that if you shoot the president with a gun the bullet will simply bounce back. Why should a musique concrete piece sound strange? They assume it's simply real because they are listening to it.