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In Defense of Rap Music: Not Just Beats, Rhymes, Sex, and Violence
In Defense of Rap Music: Not Just Beats, Rhymes, Sex, and Violence THESIS Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Crystal Joesell Radford, BA Graduate Program in Education The Ohio State University 2011 Thesis Committee: Professor Beverly Gordon, Advisor Professor Adrienne Dixson Copyrighted by Crystal Joesell Radford 2011 Abstract This study critically analyzes rap through an interdisciplinary framework. The study explains rap‟s socio-cultural history and it examines the multi-generational, classed, racialized, and gendered identities in rap. Rap music grew out of hip-hop culture, which has – in part – earned it a garnering of criticism of being too “violent,” “sexist,” and “noisy.” This criticism became especially pronounced with the emergence of the rap subgenre dubbed “gangsta rap” in the 1990s, which is particularly known for its sexist and violent content. Rap music, which captures the spirit of hip-hop culture, evolved in American inner cities in the early 1970s in the South Bronx at the wake of the Civil Rights, Black Nationalist, and Women‟s Liberation movements during a new technological revolution. During the 1970s and 80s, a series of sociopolitical conscious raps were launched, as young people of color found a cathartic means of expression by which to describe the conditions of the inner-city – a space largely constructed by those in power. Rap thrived under poverty, police repression, social policy, class, and gender relations (Baker, 1993; Boyd, 1997; Keyes, 2000, 2002; Perkins, 1996; Potter, 1995; Rose, 1994, 2008; Watkins, 1998). -
'Troublesome' Voices
‘TROUBLESOME’ VOICES Ph.D. Thesis – M. Smith McMaster University – English & Cultural Studies ‘TROUBLESOME’ VOICES: REPRESENTATIONS OF BLACK WOMANHOOD IN STREET LITERATURE AND HIP-HOP MUSIC By MARQUITA R. SMITH, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Marquita R. Smith, August 2015 ii Ph.D. Thesis – M. Smith McMaster University – English & Cultural Studies DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2015) McMaster University (English & Cultural Studies) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: ‘Troublesome’ Voices: Representations of Black Womanhood in Street Literature and Hip-Hop Music AUTHOR: Marquita R. Smith, B.A. (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey), M.A. (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Mary O’Connor NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 196 iii Ph.D. Thesis – M. Smith McMaster University – English & Cultural Studies ABSTRACT This dissertation draws upon literary and cultural studies, hip-hop studies, and hip-hop feminism to explore Black women’s critical engagement with the boundaries of Black womanhood in the cultural productions of street literature and hip-hop music. The term “troublesome” motivates my analysis as I argue that the works of writers Teri Woods and Sister Souljah and of rapper Lil’ Kim create narratives that alternately highlight, reproduce, and challenge racist, classist, and sexist discourse on Black womanhood. Such narratives reveal hip-hop to be a site for critical reflection on Black womanhood and offer context-specific examples of the intersectionality of hip-hop generation women’s experiences. This project also incorporates ethnographic methods to document and validate the experiential knowledge of street literature readers. -
Ruination Day”
Woody Guthrie Annual, 4 (2018): Fernandez, “Ruination Day” “Ruination Day”: Gillian Welch, Woody Guthrie, and Disaster Balladry1 Mark F. Fernandez Disasters make great art. In Gillian Welch’s brilliant song cycle, “April the 14th (Part 1)” and “Ruination Day,” the Americana songwriter weaves together three historical disasters with the “tragedy” of a poorly attended punk rock concert. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and the epic dust storm that took place on what Americans call “Black Sunday” in 1935 all serve as a backdrop to Welch’s ballad, which also revolves around the real scene of a failed punk show that she and musical partner David Rawlings had encountered on one of their earlier tours. The historical disasters in question all coincidentally occurred on the fourteenth day of April. Perhaps even more important, the history of Welch’s “Ruination Day” reveals the important relationship between history and art as well as the enduring relevance of Woody Guthrie’s influence on American songwriting.2 Welch’s ouevre, like Guthrie’s, often nods to history. From the very instruments that she and Rawlings play to the themes in her original songs to the tunes she covers, she displays a keen awareness and reverence for the past. The sonic quality of her recordings, along with her singing and musical style, also echo the past. This historical quality is quite deliberate. Welch and Rawlings play vintage instruments to achieve much of that sound. Welch’s axes are all antiques—her main guitar is a 1956 Gibson J-50. -
Master Biden Speaks
Master Biden Speaks By Margaret Kimberley Region: USA Global Research, January 04, 2021 Theme: History Black Agenda Report 16 December 2020 The civil rights groups’ rather basic requests for voting rights protections and the need for federal intervention to address police brutality were minimized and dismissed by the president-elect. Joe Biden is nothing if not consistent. He has always been an unreconstructed racist and a crass mediocrity. Barack Obama had to admit that he chose Joe Biden as his running mate despite knowing that he is “not always self-aware.” Biden certainly wasn’t aware or didn’t care about either his demeanor or the substance of his discussions with people referred to as civil rights leaders recently. He and Kamala Harris met with Derrick Johnson, Vanita Gupta, Rev. Al Sharpton, Sherrilyn Ifill, Melanie Campbell, Marc Morial, Kristen Clarke, and Cedric Richmond. The supposedly confidential meeting was leaked to the media and can now be seen on youtube . No one ever steps forward and admits to leaking anything as important as a recording with a president elect, but someone did just that. There is conjecture that Biden did the deed himself, so as to accomplish what Bill Clinton did with his Sister Souljah moment used to embarrass Jesse Jackson. It is also akin to Barack Obama’s continued finger wagging and demeaning of black people. Politicians love to use a beat down of black people as a signal to white people. They are then reassured that black people will not receive any consideration they consider worthwhile or threatening to their interests. -
The Suburbanization of the Democratic Party, 1992–2018
The Suburbanization of the Democratic Party, 1992–2018 David A. Hopkins Boston College [email protected] Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 29, 2019. 1 Abstract Over the past three decades, the Democratic Party has become mostly suburban in both the residence of party supporters in the mass public and the composition of its congressional caucus. This transformation reflects migration patterns among American citizens, partisan shifts among some suburban voters, and a serious relative decline over time in the party’s rural strength. The trend of suburbanization has made the party’s elected officials more ideologically unified, especially on cultural issues, but it also works to preclude the partywide adoption of an ambitious left-wing economic agenda. Suburbanization has occurred alongside a growth in the racial heterogeneity of the Democratic mass membership and elite leadership alike, encouraged by the demographic diversification of American suburbs. Democratic suburban growth has been especially concentrated in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, reflecting the combined presence of both relatively liberal whites (across education levels) and substantial minority populations, but suburbs elsewhere remain decidedly, even increasingly, Republican in their collective partisan alignment. Rather than stimulating a broad national pro-Democratic backlash across suburban communities in general, as is sometimes suggested by political observers, the election of Donald Trump has instead further magnified this existing divergence—leaving American suburbia, like the nation itself, closely and deeply divided between the two major parties. Introduction Political analysts, including academics, are fond of describing the current era of American politics as primarily distinguished by deep and stable partisan loyalties. -
Izabella Penier Culture-Bearing Women
Izabella Penier Culture-bearing Women: The Black Women Renaissance and Cultural Nationalism This monograph was written during Marie Curie-Sklodowska Fellowship 2016-2018 (European Union’s Horizon 2020 grant agreement No 706741) Izabella Penier Culture-bearing Women The Black Women Renaissance and Cultural Nationalism Managing Editor: Katarzyna Grzegorek Language Editor: Adam Leverton ISBN 978-83-956095-4-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-83-956095-5-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-83-956095-6-5 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. For details go 4o http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. © 2019 Izabella Penier Published by De Gruyter Poland Ltd, Warsaw/Berlin Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com. Managing Editor: Katarzyna Grzegorek Language Editor: Adam Leverton www.degruyter.com Cover illustration: https://unsplash.com/@jeka_fe by Jessica Felicio Contents Preface 1 1 Introduction: The Black Women Renaissance, Matrilineal Romances and the “Volkish Tradition” 16 1.1 African Americans as an “Imagined” Community and the Roots of the “Volkish” Tradition 32 1.2 Two Versions of the National “Family Plot”: Black National Theatre and the Historical /Heritage Writing of the Black Women’s Renaissance 40 1.3 The Black Women’s Renaissance and Black Cultural Nationalism: Can Nationalism and Feminism Merge? -
Of Paul Robeson 53
J. Karp: The “Hassidic Chant” of Paul Robeson 53 Performing Black-Jewish Symbiosis: The “Hassidic Chant” of Paul Robeson JONATHAN KARP* On May 9, 1958, the African American singer and political activist Paul Robeson (1898–1976) performed “The Hassidic [sic] Chant of Levi Isaac,” along with a host of spirituals and folk songs, before a devoted assembly of his fans at Carnegie Hall. The “Hassidic Chant,” as Robeson entitled it, is a version of the Kaddish (Memorial Prayer) attributed to the Hasidic rebbe (master), Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (1740–1810), a piece also known as the “Din Toyre mit Got” (“The Lawsuit with God”). According to tradition, Levi Yizhak had composed the song spontaneously on a Rosh Hashanah as he contemplated the steadfast faith of his people in the face of their ceaseless suffering. He is said to have stood in the synagogue before the open ark where the Torah scrolls reside and issued his complaint directly to God: a gut morgn dir, riboynoy shel oylem; ikh, levi yitzhak ben sarah mi-barditchev, bin gekumen tzu dir mit a din toyre fun dayn folk yisroel. vos host-tu tzu dayn folk yisroel; un vos hos-tu zich ongezetst oyf dayn folk yisroel? A good day to Thee, Lord of the Universe! I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah, from Berditchev, Bring against you a lawsuit on behalf of your People, Israel. What do you have against your People, Israel? Why have your so oppressed your People, Israel?1 After this questioning of divine justice, Levi Yitzhak proceeded to chant the Kaddish in attestation to God’s sovereignty and supremacy. -