Keeping the Music Alive: The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra's Work of Memory

Join us for a special keynote address with Dr. Samuel Lamontagne, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Music and Black Study at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Lamontagne's research explores hip hop and Black music histories as sites of knowledge production, with a focus on the cultural, political, and epistemological stakes of Black expressive practices. Centered primarily in the United States but attentive to transnational circulations, his work situates Black cultural production within broader Pan-African and diasporic frameworks.

Founded in 1961 in South Central Los Angeles, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (PAPA) has long been more than a jazz ensemble. This keynote approaches the Arkestra as a community-based project of memory, transmission, and Black cultural activism. Emerging from pianist Horace Tapscott's refusal of the logics of the music industry, PAPA re-centered music within Black communities, linking artistic practice to political struggle, education, and collective care. Focusing on the Arkestra’s self-defined role as "carriers of the culture," this talk examines how memory operates not only through formal archives but through everyday social and musical practices. Situating this work within the broader context of Black Los Angeles, the keynote argues that the Arkestra’s memory practices constitute a form of resistance. At a moment when gentrification threatens to erase Black histories and displace communities, "keeping the music alive" becomes an urgent intervention.

Dr. Lamontagne's publications address topics including Black Los Angeles music histories, electronic dance music practices, hip hop methodologies, and global Black cultural politics. In 2024, he co-directed - with H. Samy Alim and Tabia Shawel - the documentary In the Hour of Chaos: Hip Hop Art and Activism with Public Enemy’s Chuck D, a companion film to a book published by University of California Press (2026). He is also co-founder - with Jesse Justice, Sam Lee, Ajay Ravi, and Mekala Session - of the record labels Preference Records and The Village, through which he produces and curates releases that engage archival and contemporary Black music practices, including the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra’s 60-Year compilation and the reissue of Wala Wala Bok? by pioneer Senegalese rap group Pee Froiss.

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This event is part of the Sounds of the Underground event series at Cal State LA's University Library, highlighting diasporic narratives and underrepresented cultural histories through music, art, and community storytelling. For more information, visit: https://calstatela.edu/library/sounds.

Free and open to the public. Seating is limited, so RSVP to reserve your spot. Cal State LA students, staff, and faculty will be prioritized. A ticket does not guarantee entry.