'For hire': Marketing ceremonial Bata drumming on YouTube

Abstract

This paper examines the emergence of marketing practices on YouTube that promote ceremonial Cuban bata drumming. A primary consideration for analysis will focus on how authenticity of practice is conveyed to users through the technological affordances offered by YouTube. While a number of discourses surround the concept of what constitutes the authentic (e.g. Bruner, 1994; Keister, 2005; Lindholm, 2002; Taylor, 2014), in the case of ceremonial Cuban bata drumming authenticity is most often conveyed through adherence to the religious conventions and expectations that govern performance, which is in turn sanctioned through religious authority bestowed upon the bata drums and drummers through complex initiation rituals.