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Home , Ann Powers, Beep Me 911, Danyel Smith, Grace Jones, Nutbush City Limits, Proud Mary

Prof. D. A. Brooks [email protected] Office: 405, Dept. of African American Stds, 81 Wall Street

Spring 2015 Meets Tu/Th 2:30-3:45pm Location: WLH 208 Office Hours: Tu: 4-5pm, W: 3:30pm-5pm & by appointment

AFAM 403/THST 431/AM STDS 386 “…Who Run the World”: Black Women and Culture

[Billie] Holiday demonstrates… the value of important lives and voices Otherwise dismissed. --Lindon Barrett, Blackness and Value

My persuasion can build a nation. --Beyonce

From and to Turner and Beyonce, from and Grace Jones to and , black women have used various forms of musical expression as sites of social and ideological resistance and revision. Through an exploration of voice, lyricism, kinesthetic performance, instrumentality and visual aesthetics, this course examines the “world wide underground” of black women’s sonic cultures, and it re-interrogates subculture theories through the intersecting prisms of race, gender, class and sexuality. It considers the ways that black women musicians operate as socio- political and cultural intellectuals, and it reads their work as historically-situated cultural texts that resonate in multiple contexts.

Throughout the semester, we will explore the ways in which black women culture workers have stylized and innovated disruptive and iconic performance practices within the context of American popular music culture, from the postbellum era through the present day. Part of the aim of this course is to trace the tensions between the enormous influence and ubiquity of the black female singing voice in globalized popular cultures and the ways in which a range of entertainers have nonetheless negotiated eccentric and “obscure” musical gestures that signaled and affirmed the existence of resistant musical aesthetics in the face of panopticism. Iconic performers as well as lesser-known artists will figure prominently in discussions that will focus on re-theorizing subculture studies in relation to black women’s musicality. Through an interrogation of performance politics and the work of unconventional black vaudeville musical and cabaret entertainers, classic and artists, gospel singers, pioneers, girl groups, folk and pop iconoclasts, and performers, punk and new wave musicians, and contemporary R&B and artists, this course will examine the meaning of musical bohemia for black women as well as the ways that black feminist praxis emerges sonically and in the context of embodied performance. Audio texts, as well as film and video, literary narrative, critical theory, pop music criticism, artist biographies, and cultural histories will serve as central sites of textual inquiry.

Required Texts available at the Yale Bookstore Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style Farah J. Griffin, If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday Gayle Wald, Shout, Sister, Shout: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer with David Ritz, Rage to Survive Nina Simone, Matt Dobkin, I Never Loved A Man the Way I Love You: , Respect and the Making of a Masterpiece* with Kurt Loder, I, Tina

*Available via Amazon.com and Library Reserves

V2 Server: Course Packet articles, audio & video clips Film Reserves

Grading: • Attendance, Class Participation, Weekly Music Blog: 15% • Group Oral Presentation Assignment (archival research included): 15% • Midterm Paper: 30% • Final Exam (In Class OR Take Home Option): 40%

Academic Integrity Statement All work for this class must be original and authored by the student. Any instances of plagiarism will result in severe penalties. Please consult the Yale College Writing Center at the website below for resources on how to properly cite all outside sources, and please also see below the link to Yale’s Academic Integrity Policy for information regarding the consequences of cheating. http://writing.yalecollege.yale.edu/advice-faculty/addressing-issue-plagiarism- your-students http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/cheating-plagiarism-and-documentation

Syllabus:

Week One: “Worldwide Underground”: Theorizing Black Women’s Sounds in Modern Culture

Tu 1/13 Introduction: “Who Run the World?” Th 1/15 Abbey Lincoln, “The Negro Woman in Literature”; Farah J. Griffin, “When Malindy Sings”; Alex Ross, “The Voice of the Century”; Hortense Spillers, “Interstices: A Small Drama of Words”

Audio/Video Reserves: Abbey Lincoln, “When Malindy Sings”; Whitney Houston, “The Star-Spangled Banner”; Aretha Franklin, “Respect”; Nina Simone, “Be My Husband”; Cassandra Wilson, “Traveling Miles”; Bessie Smith, “Poor Man’s Blues,” “Put It Right Here (Or Keep It Out There)”; Beyonce, “Run the World (Girls),” “Partition” Youtube Clip: Renee Marie, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”; “: The Voice of the Century”

Week Two: Super Bass: “Secret” Histories, Counterpublics & Afrosonic Feminist Theory Tu 1/20 Dick Hebdige, Selections from Subculture 1-26, 73-99; Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression”; Nathaniel Mackey, “Other: From Noun to Verb”; Nicole Fleetwood, “Excess Flesh: Black Women Performing Hypervisibility”

Audio & Video Reserves: The Sex Pistols, “Pretty Vacant”; The Clash, “White Riot”; Zora Neale Hurston, selected recordings; Nicki Minaj, “Super Bass”; fka twigs, “Video Girl,” “Two Weeks”; Grace Jones, “Williams’ Blood”; Lil Kim, “How Many Licks…”; Janelle Monae, “Violet Stars Happy Hunting”

Th 1/22 Dick Hebdige, Selections from Subculture 100-112, 128-133; , “Beginning to See the Light”; Jayna Brown, “Brown Girl in the Ring”; Adorno, “The Curves of the Needle” and “The Form of the Phonograph”; Roland Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice”; Janelle Monae & the Wondaland Arts Society, Liner Notes for The Archandroid album

Audio & Video Reserves: The Sex Pistols, “Bodies”; Bessie Smith, “Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair”; Janelle Monae, “Cold War”; feat. Nicki Minaj et. al, “Monster”; X-ray Spex, “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”; Bow Wow Wow, “I Want Candy”; M.I.A., “Bad Girls”; Abbey Lincoln and , “Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace”

Week Three: Old School: “Coon” Shouters & Musical Theater Ingenues, or The Black(ened) Roots of Iggy Azalea Tu 1/27 David Wondrich, “Minstrelsy or Get Out De Way”; Lori Harrison-Kahan, “Sophie Tucker and the Female Tradition”; Elijah Wald, “Race Records: Blues Queens, Crooners, Street Singers, and Hokum; D.A. Brooks, “This voice which is not one”

Audio & Video Reserves: Harry “Haywire Mac” McClintock, “Darkie Uncle Ned”; Collins and Ossman, “All Coons Look Alike to Me”; Bert Williams, “Nobody”; Sophie Tucker, “Yiddishe Mama,” “I Don’t Want to Get too Thin”; Alberta Hunter, “Two- Fisted Double-Jointed Rough and Ready Man,” “My Handy Man”; Ethel Waters, “No Man’s Mamma Now”; Bessie Smith, “Down Hearted Blues,” “‘Tain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do”; , “Rehab,” “”; Iggy Azalea, “Fancy,” “Work”

Th 1/29 Jayna Brown, “Letting the Flesh Fly”; Mae G. Henderson "Josephine Baker and La Revue Nègre: From Ethnography to Performance”; Shane Vogel, “Performing Stormy Weather”; Selected New York Times & New Yorker magazine Porgy & Bess features and reviews

Audio & Video Reserves: Josephine Baker, “J’ai deux amores,” “Don’t Touch My Tomatoes”; Ethel Waters, “Stormy Weather”; , “Stormy Weather”; Aretha Franklin, “Swanee”; Anne Brown, “Summertime”; Audra McDonald, “Summertime”; Fantasia, “Summertime”; selected clips from , , Beyonce,

Week Four: Under the Big Tent: Revising Blues Histories Tu 2/3 Daphne Duval Harrison, “Riding Toby to the Big Time”; Hazel Carby, “It Jus Be’s Dat Way Sometime;” Tera Hunter, “‘Sexual Pantomimes,’ Aesthetic and Black Women in the New South”; D.A. Brooks, “Mamie Smith”; Paige McGinley, “Real Personality: The Blues Actress”

Audio Reserves: Mamie Smith, “Crazy Blues”; Ma Rainey, “Traveling Blues,” “Backwater Blues,” “Sweet Rough Man,” “Prove It On Me Blues”; Bessie Smith, “In House Blues,” “St. Louis Blues”; Ida Cox, “One Hour Mama,” “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues”; Clara Smith, “Freight Train Blues,” “Railroad Man Blues”

Th 2/5 Angela Davis, “I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama” (Chapter 1 in Blues Legacies and Black Feminism; select Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith song lyrics in Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism; Michelle Scott, “An Empress in Vaudeville: Bessie Smith on the Theater Circuit”; John Jeremiah Sullivan, “The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie”

Audio & Video Reserves: Bessie Smith, “In House Blues,” “Don’t Fish In My Sea,” “Young Woman’s Blues” “Gimme a Pigfoot,” “Downhearted Blues” “Poor Man’s Blues”; Geeshie Wiley, “Last Kind Words”; Elvie Thomas, “Motherless Child Blues”; Mary J. Blige, “I’m Going Down,” “Not Gon’ Cry No More,” “No More Drama”; Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige, “I Used to Love Him”; Beyonce, “Irreplaceable,” “Jealous”

Week Five: New Cool: Jazz, Gender & Black Feminist Sonic Modernity Tu 2/10 Farah J. Griffin, If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery (Preface- Chap. 4, pp. 1-116); Brent Hayes Edwards, “ and the Syntax of Scat”; Mary Lou Williams, “” (pp. 178-188)

Audio & Video Reserves: Billie Holiday, “Billie’s Blues,” “Strange Fruit,” “Don’t Explain,” “My Man,” “Yesterdays,” “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do,” “My Last Affair,” “Summertime”; Louis Armstrong, “Heebie Jeebies”; , “Flying Home,” “Mack the Knife,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”; Ella Fitzgerald with Louis Armstrong, “Summertime”; , “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Lullaby from Birdland,” “Summertime”; Mary Lou Williams, “Nightlife,” “Roll ‘Em”; Selected clips from Gerri Allen, Cassandra Wilson, Esperanza Spaulding, Feist, Madeleine Peyroux

Th 2/12 Farah J. Griffin, If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery (Chap. 5- Coda: pp. 117-200); Leroi Jones, “Dark Lady of the Sonnets”; Rita Dove, “Canary”; Shane Vogel, “Lena Horne’s Impersona”

Audio & Video Reserves: Billie Holiday, “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone,” “Fine and Mellow”; Abbey Lincoln, “Lonely House,” “Afro Blue,” “Garvey’s Ghost,” “Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace”; Lena Horne, “Stormy Weather,” “Now!”; Dinah , “I Get A Kick Out of You,” “Backwater Blues,” “What a Diff’rence a Day Made,” “Baby, You’ve Got What It Takes”; Mary Lou Williams, “Nightlife,” “Roll ‘Em”; Selected clips from Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Cecile McLorin Salvant

Week Six: Sacred Subcultures: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, & the Politics of Gospel “Crossover” Tu 2/17 Gayle Wald, Shout, Sister, Shout: The Untold Story of Rock-and- Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Preface—Chap. 10)

Audio & Video Reserves: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “My Man and I,” “,” “God Don’t Like It,” “Strange Things Happen Everyday,” “Didn’t It Rain,” “Rock Me,” “I Want a Tall Skinny Papa”; ,” “Trouble in Mind,” “Shout, Sister, Shout!” “”; The Noisettes, “Sister Rosetta (Capture the Spirit),”; clips from Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Noisettes

Th 2/19 Gayle Wald, Shout, Sister, Shout (Chap. 11-Epilogue), Mahalia Jackson, Chapters 23-26, Just Mahalia, Baby; Ralph Ellison, “As the Spirit Moves Mahalia”; Zora Neale Hurston, “Spirituals and Neo-Spirituals”

Audio & Video Reserves: Mahalia Jackson, “Precious Lord,” “His Eye is On the Sparrow,” “Summertime/Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child,” “Didn’t It Rain,” “Move On Up a Little Higher,” “Come Sunday”; Patti LaBelle, “Over the Rainbow,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone”; Aretha Franklin, “How I Got Over,” “Amazing Grace,” “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water”; Selected clips from , Fantasia, Mary, Mary

Week Seven: Blue(s)print to Rock: New Narratives of Love & Theft Tu 2/24 Etta James with David Ritz, Rage to Survive, Chapters 1-21

Audio & Video Reserves: Etta James, “Try A Little Tenderness,” “Something’s Got a Hold On Me,” “What’d I Say,” “At Last,” “Stop the Wedding, “ Tell Mama,” “I’d Rather Go Blind” “Money (That’s What I Want)”; Selected clips from , Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings,

Th 2/26 Etta James with David Ritz, Rage to Survive; Alice Walker, “Nineteen Fifty-Five”; Judith Jack Halberstam, “Queer Voices and Musical Genders”

Film Reserves: Cadillac Records

Audio & Video Reserves: Willie Mae Thornton/Big Mama Thornton, “Hound Dog”; , “Hound Dog”; Ruth Brown, “This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin,’” Sharon Jones, “Nobody’s Baby,” “Humble Me,” “Keep on Looking”; , “Work It”; Selections from Missy Elliott

MIDTERM PAPER DUE Friday, February 27, 2015 by Midnight

Week Eight: Bohemian Rhapsody: Adventures in Afrocosmopolitanism: Nina Simone & Eartha Kitt Tu 3/3 Nina Simone, I Put A Spell On You (pp. v-128); Ruth Feldstein, “I Don’t Trust You Anymore”; D.A. Brooks, “Nina Simone’s Triple Play”

Audio & Video Reserves: Nina Simone, “Mood Indigo,” “I Put a Spell on You,” “See-Line Woman,” “Pirate Jenny,” “Four Women,” “Mississippi Goddam,” “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “Backlash Blues,” “Old Jim Crow,” “Go Limp,” “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” “22nd Century”

Th 3/5 Eartha Kitt, Selections I’m Still Here (Chaps. 1-14); Francesca Royster, “Eartha Kitt, ”; Recommended: Nina Simone, I Put A Spell On You (129-the end)

Audio & Video Reserves: Eartha Kitt, “I Wanna Be Evil,” “Usku Dara,” “St. Louis Blues,” “Old-Fashioned Girl,” “Santa Baby,” “Where is My Man”; Selected Clips from Macy Gray, , Grace Jones, Janelle Monae

Tu 3/10 SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS Th 3/12 SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS

Tu 3/17 SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS Th 3/19 SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS

Week Nine: Heartbreaking Genius: Girl Groups & Teen Ingenues Tu 3/24 Jacqueline Warwick, Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identity in the 1960s, Parts I & II (pp. 1-92), Chaps. 12 & 13 (pp. 181-202); Donna Gaines, “Girl Groups: A Ballad of Codependency”; D.A. Brooks, “Come On & See Me: Tammi Terrell,” D.A. Brooks, “Aretha Franklin: Bold Soul Ingenue”

Audio & Video Reserves: Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, “Dancing in the Street,” “(Love is Like A) Heatwave,” “Nowhere to Run”; The Shirelles, “I Met Him On A Sunday,” “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”; , “,” “He Did It”; The Chantels, “Maybe”; The Marvelettes, “Please Mr. Postman”; The Crystals, “He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Kiss)”; Selected clips from Aretha Franklin, Tammi Terrell, TLC, SWV, Amy Winehouse

Th 3/26 Martha Reeves, “Dancing in the Street;” Mary Wilson, Chapter 14, Dreamgirl; Diana Ross, “Get Up and Sit on the ”; Mark Ribowsky, The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams (Prologue- Chapter 4, pp. 1-62)

Film Reserves: Dreamgirls

Audio Reserves: The Supremes, “Buttered Popcorn,” “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “I Hear A Symphony,” “Love Child,” “Someday We’ll Be Together,” “Somewhere”; Selected Clips from En Vogue, Destiny’s Child, Lauryn Hill

Week Ten: “Rolling in the Deep”: The Gendered Politics of Soul, the Radical Poetics of Folk Tu 3/31 Matt Dobkin, I Never Loved A Man the Way I Love You: Aretha Franklin, Respect and the Making of a Soul Music Masterpiece

Audio Reserves: Aretha Franklin, “I Never Loved a Man,” “How I Got Over,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Dr. Feelgood” (Demo), “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “I Say A Little Prayer for You,” “Since You’ve Been Gone,” “Spirit in the Dark,” “Rock Steady,” “Wholy Holy,” “You’re All I Need to Get By (Demo—Takes 1 & 2)”

Th 4/2 Ann Powers, “Aretha Franklin;” Matthew Frye Jacobson, “Take This Hammer”; Jason King, “The Power of ‘Vibe’ in the Music of ”; Sheila Whitely, “Talkin’ ‘bout A Revolution: Tracy Chapman”

Audio & Video Reserves: Odetta, “If I Had A Hammer,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “John Henry”; Joan Armatrading, “Show Some Emotion,” “Love and Affection,” “(I Love It When You) Call Me Names”; Roberta Flack, “Just Like A Woman,” “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Killing Me Softly with His Song”; Selected Clips from the SNCC Freedom Singers, Mavis Staples and , Gladys Knight & the Pips, Bettye Lavette, Joan Armatrading, Tracy Chapman, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Sade, , India.Arie, Alice Smith, Adele, Valerie June, Rhiannon Giddens

Week Eleven: Heavy Mettle: Black Women Do Hard Rock, Funk, Disco & Punk Tu 4/7 Selections from Tina Turner with Kurt Loder, I, Tina: pp. 1-12, 35-185; Kandia Crazyhorse, “Live at Philmore”; Nikki Greene, “The Feminist Funk Power of Betty Davis & Renee Stout”; Tammy Kernodle, “Digging You Like Those Old Soul Records: Meshell Ndegeocello”

Audio & Video Reserves: Ike & Tina Turner, “,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” “,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” “,” “,” “Funkier than a Mosquita’s Tweeter,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”; Tina Turner, “,” “,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It”; Betty Davis, “If I’m in Luck, I Might Get Picked Up,” “Walkin Up the Road,” “Steppin in Her I. Miller Shoes,” “Game Is My Middle Name,” “They Say I’m Different,” “Anti Love Song,” “Don’t Call Her No Tramp”; Skunk Anansie, “Intellectualise My Blackness”; Cree Summer, “Curious White Boy”; Selected Clips from Meshell Ndegeocello, Joi, Nikka Costa

Th 4/9 Audre , “The Uses of the Erotic”; Alice Echols, “Ladies Night”; Francesca Royster, “Labelle: Funk, Feminism and the Politics of Flight and Fight”; Carola Dibbell, “Inside Was Us: Women in American Punk;” Francesca Royster, “Grace Jones: Feeling Like A Woman, Looking Like A Man”

Audio & Video Reserves: Donna Summer, “Love to Love You, Baby,” “Hot Stuff,” “Last Dance,” “Bad Girls”; Chaka Khan & Rufus, “Tell Me Something Good,” “Sweet Thing”; Chaka Khan, “What Am I Missing,” “I’m a Woman (I’m a Backbone),” “I’m Every Woman” (Khan)’; Labelle, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Lady Marmalade”; Donna Summer with , “Enough is Enough”; Grace Jones, “,” “,” “,” “My Jamaican Guy,” “Slave to the Rhythm,” “Demolition Man,” “Williams’ Blood”; Selected Clips from Chaka Khan, Sheila E., Tamar-Kali, The Noisettes, Janelle Monae, the Alabama Shakes

Week Twelve: “Bring the Pain”: Diva Pop, Hip Hop Soul, Neo Soul & the Retro Soul Revival Tu 4/14 Richard Rischar, “A Vision of Love;” Danyel Smith, “Janet Jackson;” Amy Linden, “Smooth Operator: Contemporary R&B;” D. A. Brooks, “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay;” Ernest Hardy, “Too Deep: Aretha-Chaka-Lauryn”; D.A. Brooks, “Whitney Houston: The Voice of the Post-Civil Rights Era”

Audio & Video Reserves: Janet Jackson, “Control”; Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”; Mariah Carey, “Vision of Love,” “I’ll Be There,” “We Belong Together”; Mary J. Blige, “Real Love”; ““You Remind Me,” “I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need,” “One”; TLC, “Waterfalls,” “Creep,” “No Scrubs”; Destiny’s Child, “Bugaboo,” “Bills, Bills, Bills”; Lauryn Hill, “Lost Ones”

Evening Film Screening: Beyond the Lights (2014) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood

Th 4/16 Ann Powers, “Crossing Back Over” and “The New Conscience of Pop;” Mark Anthony Neal, “Grown Ass Women;” D.A. Brooks, “Bring the Pain: Lauryn Hill”; D.A. Brooks, “All That You Can’t Leave Behind;” Sasha Frere Jones, “Mariah Carey: On Top”; critical class discussion: on Beyonce-ology

Audio & Video Reserves: The Fugees, “Killing Me Softly”; Erykah Badu, “Bag Lady,” “Back in the Day,” “Danger,” “Telephone”; Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill; Jill Scott, “The Way,” “Golden,” “Womanifesto,” “Rolling Hills”; Angie Stone, “Brotha,” “Pissed Off,” “Wish I Didn’t Miss You,” “Time of the Month”; Macy Gray, “I Try,” “I’ve Committed Murder”; Kelis, “Caught Out There”; Ciara, “Like a Boy”; Selected Clips from Rihanna; Beyonce, “Crazy in Love,” “Ring the Alarm,” “Resentment,” “If I Were A Boy,” “Single Ladies,” “Girls (Run the World),” Beyonce (2013)

Week Thirteen: “I Woke Up Like This”: Feminist Hip Hop/ “I’m An Alien From Outerspace”: Afrofuturist Feminism Tu 4/21 Tricia Rose, “Bad Sistahs”; Mimi Valdes, “Beyond Sucker MCs: Hip-Hop Women;” Imani Perry, “The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto”; dream hampton, “free the girls”

Audio & Video Reserves: Queen Latifah, “Ladies First,” “U.N.I.T.Y.”; M.C. Lyte, “Lyte as a Rock”; Roxanne Shante, “Roxanne’s Revenge”; Salt ‘N Pepa, “Push It,” “None of Your Business,” “Let’s Talk About Sex,” “Whatta Man” (with En Vogue); Neneh Cherry, “Buffalo Stance,” “Inna City Mama,” “The Next Generation,” “So Here I Come,” “Trouble Man”; Lil Kim, “Queen B”; Eve, “Love Is Blind”; Missy Elliott, “ (),” “Beep Me 911,” “,” “Back in the Day” (with Jay-Z); Jean Grae, “My Story,” “The Time Is Now,” “Billy Killer,” “#8,” “Desperada”; M.I.A., “Pull Up the People,” “Freedom,” “Amazon,” “Bingo,” “Bird Flu,” “Mango Pickle Down River” (feat. The Wilcannia Mob), “Paper Planes,” “Come Around” (feat. ); Selected clips from Nicki Minaj; Azalea Banks, selections from Broke with Expensive Taste

Th 4/23 Alondra Nelson, “Future Texts”; Daylanne English and Albert Kim, “Now We Want Our Funk Cut: Janelle Monae’s Neo- Afrofuturism”

Audio & Video Reserves: Janelle Monae, Metropolis, The Archandroid, The Electric Lady; , Santogold, Master of My Make-Believe; fkA twigs, LP1; Wangechi Mutu and Santigold, “The End of Eating Everything”; Sun Ra, “Space Is the Place” excerpt; Sun Ra, A Joyful Noise

Reading Period Session: Listening Party, Critical Karaoke, Tying Up Loose Ends