Left of Black S3:E7 | Hip-Hop, Religion & The Black Church

Left of Black S3:E7 |  Hip-Hop, Religion & The Black Church

October 29, 2012

Left of Black host and Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Monica R. Miller, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Lewis & Clark College and author of  Religion and Hip-Hop (Routledge, 2012);  Ebony Utley, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Long Beach and  author Rap and Religion: Understanding The Gangsta’s God (Praeger 2012); and Emmett G. Price III, Associate Professor of Music and African-American Studies at Northeastern University and editor  The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide (Scarecrow Press, 2012).

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Left of Blackis a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in  @ iTunes U

Hip-Hop, Religion and the Black Church on the October 29th Left of Black

Hip-Hop, Religion and the Black Church on the October 29^th Left of Black

In the Spring of 1991, Black Sacred Music: a Journal of Theomusicology (Duke University Press), published a special issue of the journal, “The Emergency of Black and the Emergence of Rap,” edited by Jon Michael Spencer (Yahya Jongintaba) and featuring essays from William Eric Perkins, Angela Spence Nelson, legendary religious scholar C. Eric Lincoln and a young Michael Eric Dyson. Though the Nation of Gods and Earths were part of the fabric of Hip-Hop culture from its earliest years, the special issue of Black Sacred Music was one of the first examples by scholars making connections between Hip-Hop culture and religious and spiritual practices—at a time when there were still few examples of mainstream scholarship on Hip-hop Culture.

Two decades later, scholars Monica R. Miller, Ebony A. Utley and Emmett G. Price IIIpublished ground breaking books on Hip-Hop, religion and the Black Church within months of each other.  Professors Miller, Utley and Price, join host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal on Left of Black via Skype to talk about their books Religion and Hip-Hop (Routledge, 2012), Rap and Religion: Understanding The Gangsta’s God (Praeger 2012) and The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide (Scarecrow Press, 2012).

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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustream channel:

http://tinyurl.com/LeftofBlack

Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.  

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Monica R. Miller on Twitter: @religionhiphop

Follow Ebony A. Utley on Twitter: @u_experience

Follow Emmett G. Price III on Twitter: @EmmettGPriceIII

Ill Doctrine: Can Ghostwriters Keep It Real?

Why we need to rethink the rules for Hip-Hop & creativity.

Li’l Wayne and the New Politics of Cunnilingus in Hip Hop

Li’l Wayne and the New Politics of Cunnilingus in Hip Hop

by Heidi R. Lewis | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)

When I was growing up, I remember receiving strong messages from hip hop that black men do not, for any reason, eat pussy.  One of the most famous examples has to be “Can I Eat It?” (1995) by DJ Quik.  Over a funk-laden sample of One Way’s “Don’t Fight the Feeling,” Quik declares, “You can keep that salmon sandwich to yourself!”  The chorus, heavily auto-tuned in the vein of Roger Troutman, more pointedly instructs, “Don’t eat eat the cooch!  Don’t eat the coochie!”  Well, okay, then.  Duly noted.

To be clear, DJ Quik is far from being the only rapper to declare a disdain for eating pussy.  On “I Need to Be” (1997), Mase raps, “And I never eat pussy, ‘cause I’m too stubborn in my ways.”  On “Freek-A-Leek” (2004), Petey Pablo raps, “And [she] love to get her pussy licked...by another bitch, ‘cause I ain’t drunk enough to that.”  More recently, on “Royal Flush” (2009) J. Cole raps, “So that must mean you want a nigga to eat that seafood.  Baby, don’t be foolish, but call her.  I’ll watch her do it.” 

It’s not a surprise, then, that a lot of women were jumping for joy when Li’l Kim burst on the scene with “Not Tonight” (1996), on which she and a chorus of women sing, “I don’t want dick tonight!  Eat my pussy right!”  In 2001, Foxy Brown gets help from Kelis on “Candy” when she raps, “Let me know when you ready to eat!”  A year later, on “Work It,” Missy Elliott raps, “Go downtown, eat it like a vulture.”  In 2006, Khia also rocked the hip hop world when she released “My Neck, My Back,” rapping, “Lick my pussy and my crack!”  As you can see, female rappers have been outright rejecting the “don’t eat pussy” narrative in hip hop for some time. 

The anti-cunnilingus stance in hip hop can most definitely be attributed to heterosexual black male politics.  In short, black men who claim they don’t eat pussy do so because it’s not “manly” to do anything sexual that is not pleasurable for the man, even though you know that’s not true if you’re a grown up.  This is why a lot of mainstream male rappers are lyrically all about getting their dick sucked, running trains, participating in threesomes or various other kinds of sexual orgies, and so on.  For those guys, it’s all about busting a nut, not making sure the woman they’re fucking gets hers.  You might be tempted to counter that these politics are not exclusive to black communities or even hip hop.  Well, you’d be right, but these issues do manifest themselves uniquely in black communities for several reasons.  For brevity’s sake, I’ll just suggest that you read up on the Buck and Jezebel stereotypes for more context.

So, what does this have to do with Li’l Wayne?  Intellectuals—academic or otherwise—have too easily dismissed Li’l Wayne as problematic along many lines.  We’ve heard and/or read it all before.  He’s an admitted drug addict.  He’s said terrible things about dark-skinned black women.  He arguably does not have any talent, even though it’s also been claimed that he doesn’t even write his own raps.  He’s a misogynist, sexist.  There’s enough of this floating in the air that I won’t spend a lot of time detailing those arguments here.  I’m more interested in nuancing existing conversations about Li’l Wayne, because someone needs to recognize the fact that Tunechi has recently, in some ways, begun to redefine hip hop masculinity by taking a stance that is extremely pro-cunnilingus. 

Let me give you some examples that are sure to have you clutching your pearls.  On “Upgrade” (2007), he raps “Let me just taste you.  We can fuck later.”  On “Time for Us to Fuck” (2007), he raps, “I’m on a strict diet.  I can only eat you.”  On “Pussy Monster” (2007), he raps, “When I lift my top lip, I could still smell you.  When I swallow my spit, I could still taste you.  Put that pussy in my face every time I face you.”  On the “Lollipop” remix (2008), he raps, “That pussy in my mouth had me loss for words.”  On “Mr. Carter” (2008), he raps, “I suck a pussy, fuck a pussy, leave it there.  Long hair don’t even care.”  On “She Will” (2011), he raps, “I like my girl thick, not just kind of fine.  Eat her ‘til she cry.  Call that wine and dine.”  On “So Special” (2011), he raps, “Just sit on my grill.  That’s that tailgate for ya.”  I’m wiping the sweat beads from my forehead as I type.

Let me simmer down so I can get back to the point.  To be fair, not all male rappers before or after Wayne have been unequivocally anti-cunnilingus.  On “If You Believe in Having Sex” (1989), 2 Live Crew chants, “All hoes suck dick!  All niggas eat pussy!”  On “Put It in Your Mouth” (1996), Akinyele features Crystal Johnson singing, “You can just eat me out!”  On “I’m Not a Player” (1998), Big Pun raps, “’Scuse me for being blunt, but I been eatin’ cunts since pimps was pushin’ Caddies with the fish tank pumps.”  On “What Means the World to You?” (2000), Cam’Ron features Keema rapping, “Sex is sweet with a cat who eat!”  On “Eat Pussy” (2007), N.O.R.E. raps, “I eat the pussy.  I’m a man about it.”  On “Prostitute” (2008), Juelz Santana raps, alongside Li’l Wayne, “I’ll eat that pussy up like a plate of food, and baby you make me wanna lick my fingers after.”

So what’s different about Wayne?  Well, eating pussy has become like a calling card for him, part of his signature style.  If you listen to an entire Li’l Wayne album released in the past 5 years, official or mixtape, you will hear references to eating pussy at least 5 times, probably more.  If not, I’d be willing to give you at least some of my next paycheck.  Some.  I still got bills, you know.  To be serious for a minute, though, the raps in which we can find these lines from Wayne are still chock full of traditional hip hop masculinity.  Even the pussy-eating lines are, a lot of times, linked to hypermasculine bravado, braggadocio, and ego. 

For example, on “Ain’t I?” (2008), he raps, “But I don’t pizza.  I eat pussy when he wouldn’t.”  Here, the woman’s pleasure is still tied up in competition between men—I eat her pussy when you won’t, and I do it better than you.  On the other hand, there’s a lot of mutual satisfaction going on in Li’l Wayne raps that we’d be remiss to ignore.  On “My Birthday” (2011), he raps, “I gotta wipe my diamond grill with a tissue.  I talk too much shit.  I eat pussy, and you suck dick.”  On the “Lollipop” remix, he also raps, “The middle of the bed…givin’, gettin’ head.”  On “Wayne on Me” (2009), he raps, “She kiss me mine.  I kiss hers back.  If she a bad bitch, she deserve that.”  Now, yes, there’s that whole thing about what kind of woman does and doesn’t deserve to “get head” from Wayne—again with the policing of women’s sexuality.  Still, it’s especially interesting that, at least for Li’l Wayne, it’s no longer just about having the biggest dick or best stroke.  It’s also about being able to serve your woman up with fierce tongue action.  Huh?  Tell me that’s not different.

So, what do we do now?  I’m not asking that we slap a feminist label on Li’l Wayne, even if we only slap it on his willingness to pleasure a woman sexually.  Throwing around the feminist label is not the best use of my intellectual time and energy—at least not right now.  However, recognizing the ways in which Li’l Wayne challenges hegemonic black masculinity is just as important as thrashing his ass when he subscribes to and reinforces those very ideals.  And don’t come for me with that, “It’s just sex!” line.  Patricia Hill Collins already schooled us on the importance of examining, challenging, and revising black sexual politics.  Along those lines, Li’l Wayne is openly calling out his hip hop brothers out on their sexual immaturity.  Eating pussy may not be for every brother, but if that’s the case only because you think it makes you less of man, you need to grow up and take a cue from the President of YMCMB:

“Imagine if I did that—put your pussy on my tongue!”

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Heidi R. Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Feminist & Gender Studies at Colorado College.  Her teaching and research focuses on feminism, gender and sexuality, women’s writing, African American literature and culture, Critical Race Theory, Critical Whiteness Studies, and Critical Media Studies. 

'No Church in the Wild': The Youth's Unrecognized Spirituality Between Beats and Rhymes

'No Church in the Wild': 

The Youth's Unrecognized Spirituality Between Beats and Rhymes

by Monica R. Miller | HuffPost Black Voices

Might be a hard pill to swallow, but the rapper who reminded us that Jesus walks with pimps, hoes and crack dealers makes a timely revelation: There is "No Church in the Wild."

One of the most talked about songs off Kanye West and Jay-Z's recent collaborative LP Watch the Throne, people are calling the newly released single "No Church in the Wild" an "existential rejection of organized religion." That it most certainly is. I personally can't stop singing the chilling hook to this song. Like many young people today, West is critiquing organized religion. That doesn't mean however that neither he nor they have given up on hope and meaning.

This song foreshadows the reality of a growing rise of religious non-affiliation in our country, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The USA Today recently reported that nearly one in five Americans are religiously unaffiliated -- the highest number yet.

These trends are even more apparent among young people. I've experienced this first hand on the ground interviewing youth in Portland, Ore., for my current survey project Remaking Religion.

Over the years, I have worked with countless urban youth afflicted by issues of gang violence, homophobia and class inequality. They've lamented that they don't feel accepted in dominant institutions – the school and the church included. With no place to go, many of them turn to the arts to craft meaning and find a cathartic release.

Hip hop is one of these powerful outlets in society today.

Hooked on the Hook: What We Hear

Music is a powerful force -- the hooks and lines get stuck in our heads on repeat. We hear them being blurted out on street corners on any given day. These sound bites become the "meat and potatoes" of the pop-culture world in which we live. And yet, they are lyrical vignettes creating new canons of hope in what can seem like a hopeless world.

Kanye West has done it again. His popularized song "Jesus Walks" gave rap music a liberation theological facelift reminding us what Jesus of Nazareth was really up to. Flipping dominant narratives on their heads, Kanye humanizes Jesus and reminds us that he walked and walks with the marginal. Rappers have done well with making this point -- TuPac Shakurbeing one of the most gifted at this in my opinion.

But just like popular political speeches, music is vulnerable to re-appropriation and the artist, like the politician, has little control over what people do and how people understand their content.

Historical case in point: Martin Luther King Jr. Public intellectual Michael Eric Dyson and historian Vincent Harding have extensively argued that we as a nation have capitalized on the "I have a dream" part of King's speech to support all sorts of agendas but rarely do we pair it with the "nightmare" that King unapologetically pointed out.

Recent case in point: Seen as blasphemous and disrespectful, rapper Meek Mill was recently called upon by a Philadelphia minister to apologize for the lyrics in his new song "Amen."

When it comes to hip hop, the hook can cut in many ways for many different kinds of people. The hook of "No Church in the Wild" speaks volumes to the divergent ways in which young people are finding cathartic release and social transformation in music today -- hip hop included.

A New Hook, A New Look: Meet The New 'Nones'

There's another hook that is reverberating the airwaves and causing crisis and alarm: the declining significance of institutional religion in America. Meet the "Nones" -- a growing group of the population who are religiously unaffiliated. This group continues to grow as churches struggle to keep the pews filled with young people -- the millennials.

In "No Church in the Wild," West asks, "Human beings in a Mob/What's a mob to a King?/What's a King to a God?/What's a God to a non-believer who don't believe in anything/Will he make it out alive? Alright, alright, no church in the wild."

West might be a rapper but we should don him with an honorary degree in theology or religious studies. His queries are sharp and telling -- ones that continue to baffle experts in the field today regarding the changing face of religion.

Churchesmight be empty but in the wild there is hope. Authority is at stake when Kanye asks, "What's a mob to a king?/What's a God to a non-believer?" Without God or faith institutions to whom or what will people be accountable to?

Fret not – there is hope for the concerned. In "The None Zone" I survey young adults in the "wild" -- on street corners, in tattoo parlors, parks and bars. They overwhelmingly answer to the question "In what do you find meaning? In what do you hold as sacred?" that music (hip hop often cited) provides what churches often can't afford to.

Many of the young people I encounter question the existence of God and reject the church but find hope and answers to the pressing questions of life in music, culture and the arts. No longer under the watchful eye of God youth often use lyrics and beats of artists like Kanye West and Jay-Z to spark their spiritual flame.

There may be "No Church in the Wild" for the younger demographic of the growing "Nones," but there is a new life philosophy emerging between the beats and rhymes of hip hop music that greatly influences their cultural reality, social understanding, political participation and unrecognized spirituality.

Don't get hung up on the hook – like the story, there's more to the song.

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Dr. Monica R. Miller is Visiting Assistant Professor in the department of Religious Studies at Lewis & Clark College where her research focuses on the intersections of religion & material/popular culture. Miller currently serves as a Senior Research Fellow with The Institute for Humanist Studies (Washington, DC) and is co-chair and co-founder of a new AAR consultation: 'Critical Approaches to the Study of Hip Hop and Religion.'  She is the author of "Religion and Hip Hop" (Routledge, August 2012).

Syllabus: Sampling Soul 3.0 with 9th Wonder & Mark Anthony Neal

Sampling Soul 3.0 

Duke University

Department of African & African American Studies

AAAS 334-01

Fall 2012

Tuesday 4:40pm – 7:10pm

Ernestine Friedl Bldg, 107

Instructors:

Mark Anthony Neal, Ph.D. | @NewBlackMan 

9^th Wonder (Patrick Douthit) | @9thWonderMusic

Course Description

Soul Music emerged in the late 1950s and became the secular soundtrack of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown and record companies such as Motown and Stax, as well as the term “Soul” became symbols of black aspiration and black political engagement.  In the decades since the rise of “Soul,” the music and its icons are continuously referenced in contemporary popular culture via movie trailers, commercials, television sitcoms and of course music.  In the process “Soul” has become a significant and lucrative cultural archive, particularly for two generations of Hip-Hop artists and producers.

Co-taught by Grammy Award winning producer 9^th Wonder and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, “Sampling Soul” will examine how the concept of “Soul” has functioned as raw data for contemporary forms of cultural expression. In addition the course will consider the broader cultural implications of sampling, in the practices of parody and collage, and the legal ramifications of sampling within the context of intellectual property law.  The course also offers the opportunity to rethink the concept of archival material in the digital age.

Books

Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations | Brian Ward

Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure | ed. Monique Guillory & Richard C. Green

Parodies of Ownership: Hip-Hop Aesthetics and Intellectual Property Law | Richard L. Schur

Creative License: the Law and Culture of Digital Sampling | Kembrew McLeod & Peter Dicola

That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader | ed. Murray Forman & Mark Anthony Neal

Making Beats: the Art of Sample Based Hip-Hop | Joseph G. Schloss

The Grey Album: the Blackness of Blackness | Kevin Young

Week 1—Sampling Sampling

The Art and Aesthetics of Sampling

August 28, 2012

Introduction to sampling as a practice. What are the historical and artistic contexts for sampling practices> How do terms like appropriation, borrowing, parody, pastiche, collage and “theft” factor into our understandings of sampling practices? How have sampling practices impacted contemporary art?

Week 2—Sampling The Birth of Rock &…er, Rhythm & Blues

Race Music, Cover Scams, and Elvis Presley’s Ass

September 4, 2012

Soul Music was the logical extension of the period of “Race Music”—as Black music was defined by the recording and radio industries from the 1920s—where the music was incubated in the segregated spaces of Black American life.  The music crossed over in the 1950s with the practice of “covers”—where White performers recorded songs originally recorded by Black Rhythm and Blues artists, to greater acclaim and financial reward—leading to the emergence  of Elvis Presley at the “King” of Rock & Roll.

Readings: Ward, Just My Soul Responding | Introduction; Part 1: Deliver me from the days of old (1-169)

Discussion Question: (Beta)

Week 3—Sampling Soul

The Politics of Soul; The Soul of Politics

September 11, 2012

Soul Music emerged in the late 1950s, combining the drive of rhythm and blues, with the flourishes of the black gospel tradition.  By the 1960s it was part of a broader social movement articulated politically in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, philosophically in the concept of Black Nationalism and the Black Arts Movement and stylistically in the flourishing of Afros.

Readings: Ward, Just My Soul Responding | Part 2: People get ready; Part 3: One nation (divisible) under a groove; Epilogue (173-452)

Discussion Question (# 1)

Week 4—Sampling Black Power & Politics

The Cultural and Historical Legacy of Soul

September 18, 2012

In the 1970s Soul became  a “brand” invoked directly and indirectly in ad copy, television commercials, film and television and of course music.  Decades later ‘Soul’ has become a general phrase connected to a nostalgia for the period of the 1960s, often minus allusions to the political struggles of the era.

Readings: Guillory & Green, Soul  | Scott,  “It’s All in the Timing: The Latest Moves, James Brown’s Grooves and the Seventies Race Conscious Movement in Salvador, Bahia-Brazil” (9-22); Davis, “Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia” (23-31); White, “Fragmented Souls: Call and Response with Renee Cox” (45-55); Fared, “Wailin’ Soul: Reggae’s Debt to Black American Music” (56-74); Rux, “Aunt Emma’s Zuni Recipe for Soul Transitions” (75-86).

Screening:  The Black Power Mixtape

Discussion Question (# 2)

Week 5—Sampling The Pleasure(s) of Soul

The Soul of Black Folk

September 25, 2012

By the late 1960s ‘Soul’ became a cultural reference point related to notions of style and feeling, that marked Black bodies as exotic in the context of the mid-20^th century.  Soul located the slippery slope between exoticism and pathology, played out within a landscape of Black sexual politics.

Readings: Guillory & Green, Soul  |  Serlin, “From Sesame Street to Schoolhouse Rock: Urban Pedagogy and Soul Iconography in the 1970s” (105-120); Wald, “Soul’s Revival: White Soul, Nostalgia, and the Culturally Constructed Past” (139-158); Jackson, “Ethnophyisicality, or an Ethnography of Some Body” (172-190); Guillory,  “Black Bodies Swingin’: Race, Gender, and Jazz” (191-215); DeFrantz, “Stoned Soul Picnic: Alvin Ailey and the Struggle to Define Official Black Culture” (216-226); Gonzales, “The Legend of Soul: Curtis Mayfield!” (227-235); Simon, “The Stigmatization of ‘Blaxploitation’” (236, 249)

Discussion Question (# 3)

Week 6— Sampling Blackness

Black Culture as Intellectual Property

October 2, 2012

Though various forms of black culture have circulated freely in the United States and across the globe, they have often done so as the property of corporate entities. What is the relationship between black bodies as chattel and black culture as property?  What happens when the cultural expressions of a formerly enslaved peoples becomes intellectual property?

Readings: Schur, Parodies of Ownership  | Chap 1: From Chattel to Intellectual Property; Chap 2: Critical Race Theory, Signifyin’ and Cultural Ownership;  Chap 3: Defining Hip-Hop Aesthetics; Chap 4: Claiming Ownership in the Post-Civil Rights Era (1-98)

Discussion Question (# 4)

Week 7—Sampling Hip-Hop Aesthetics

Transformative Uses: Parody, Memory, Community

October 9, 2012

How have the aesthetics of Hip-Hop challenged the legitimacy of Intellectual Property Law and in the process transformed how we think about intellectual property and its value?

Readings: Schur, Parodies of Ownership  | Chap 5: “Fair Use” and the Circulation of Racialized Texts; Chap 6: “Transformative Uses”: Parody and Memory; Chap 7: From Invisibility to Erasure? The Consequences of Hip-hop Aesthetics

Neal, Ebony.com | "Fair Use," Al Green and President Obama’s Reelection Campaign (http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/fair-use-al-green-and-president-obamas-reelection-campaign)

Discussion Question (# 5)

Week 8— Sampling Sampling

The Culture of Digital Sampling

 October 23, 2012

Is sampling beats “stealing” music and evidence of a lazy, uncreative impulse in contemporary art? Or is it a legitimate art form?

Readings: McLeod & DiCola, Creative License

Screening:  Copyright Criminals (dir. Benjamin Franzen, 2009)

Discussion Question (# 6)

Mid-term Examination Distributed

Week 9—Sampling Hip-Hip (Origins)

Hip-Hop Origins? Origins of Hip-hop?

October 30, 2012

Hip-Hop was born nearly forty-years ago in the borough of the Bronx, in the city of New York, but it’s roots arguably can be traced to much earlier forms of black vernacular expression including the Jamaican “sound systems” that a young Clive Campbell was exposed to in his native Jamaica, before he migrated to New York City in the late 1960s as part of a wave of immigrants in the aftermath of the 1965 Immigration Act. Yet every place and space that has embraced Hip-Hop has done so with its own narratives of origin.

Readings: Murray & Neal, That’s the Joint! | Castleman, “The Politics of Graffiti” (13-22); Chang, “Zulus on a Time Bomb: Hip-Hop Meets the Rockers Downtown” (23-39); George, “Hip-Hop Founding Fathers Speak the Truth” (43-55); Pabon, “Physical Graffiti: The History of Hip-Hop Dance” (56-62); Tate, “Hip-Hop Turns 30: Watcha Celebratin’ For?” (63-67);  Flores, “Puerto Rocks: Roots, Rap, and Amnesia” (73-91); Rodman, “Race...and Other Four Letter Words: Eminem and the Cultural Politics of Authenticity” (179-198); Wang, “Rapping and Repping Asian: Race, Authenticity, and the Asian American MC” (199-223).

Mid-Term Examination Due

Week 10—Sampling Gender, Sampling Sexuality

He/She/Queer Sounds | He/She/Queer Samples

November 6, 2012

Although African American musical forms like rap music are now accepted forms of mainstream popular music, not all of the music produced within these  genres are accepted.  Sampling Queer offers a critical way of thinking about how various sonic tropes that are sampled are often rendered queer by virtue of not adhering to conventional understandings of soul, hip hop, and R&B.

Readings: Murray & Neal, That’s the Joint! | Clay, “I Used to be Scared of the Dick: Queer Women of Color and Hip-Hop Masculinity” (348-357); Dyson & Hurt: Violence, Machismo, Sexism and Homophobia” (358-369); Hill, “Scared Straight: Hip-Hop, Outing, and the Pedagogy of Queerness” (382-398); Morgan, “Hip-Hop Feminist” (413-418);

Royster, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, Volume 19, Number 1, March 2009 , pp. 77-94(18) |“Feeling like a woman, looking like a man, sounding like a no-no”: Grace Jones and the performance of Strange in the Post-Soul Moment, ”Francesca Royster;

Discussion Question (# 7)

Week 11—Sampling Race, Space & Resistance

The Politics of Sound

November 13, 2012

Arguably what has always made rap music political has been its sound—a sound that has regularly transformed the spaces the it has inhabited.  The larger question is how often have rap narratives matched the political urgency of it’s sound—and does it matter whether it does?

Readings: Murray & Neal, That’s the Joint! | Miller, “Rap’s Dirty South: From Subculture to Pop Culture” (270-293); Perry, “Global Black Self-Fashionings: Hip-Hop as Diasporic Space” (294-314); Lena, “Voyeurism and Resistance in Rap Music Videos” (462-475); Perry, “My Mic Sounds Nice: Art, Community, and Consciousness” (503-517); Peterson, “Dead Prezence: Money and Mortal Themes in Hip-hop Culture” (595-608); Holmes Smith, “I Don’t Like to Dream About Getting Paid: Representations of Social Mobility and the Emergence of the Hip-Hop Mogul” (672-689).

Discussion Question (# 8)

Week 12—Sampling Beats

The Art of Sample Based Hip-Hop

November 20, 2012

In Making Beats, ethnomusicologist Joe Schloss argues that sample-based hip-hop is a legitimate art form unto itself.

Readings: Schloss, Making Beats.

Discussion Question (#9)

 

Week 13—Sampling the Blackness of Blackness

On the Black Art of Escape

November 27, 2012

Part one of a meditation on blackness, using the mashup as metaphor.

Readings:  Young, The Grey Album | Overture; Book One: Elsewhere; Book Two: Strange Fruit (3-188)

Discussion Question (#10)

Week 14—Blackening the Sampling of Blackness

Towards a Post-Soul Poetics

December 4, 2012

Part one of a meditation on blackness, using the mashup as metaphor.

Readings:  Young, The Grey Album | Book Three: Heaven is Negro; Book Four: Cosmic Slop (189-406)

Discussion Question (#11)

Final Examination Distributed