The Songs of Black (Women) Folk: Music, Politics, and Everyday Living Rasheedah Quiett Ej Nkins Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2008 The songs of black (women) folk: music, politics, and everyday living Rasheedah Quiett eJ nkins Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Jenkins, Rasheedah Quiett, "The ons gs of black (women) folk: music, politics, and everyday living" (2008). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4048. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4048 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE SONGS OF BLACK (WOMEN) FOLK: MUSIC, POLITICS, AND EVERYDAY LIVING A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Rasheedah Jenkins B.A., Louisiana State University, 1999 August 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER 2 NINA SIMONE, THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF SOUL-(ED FOLK)…………29 CHAPTER 3 TRACY CHAPMAN, TALKIN’ BOUT A REVOLUTION(ARY)…….……68 CHAPTER 4 MS. EDUCATED LAURYN HILL’S LESSONS IN LOVE…………...….100 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION: NEO-SOUL & NOUVEAU FOLK, THE TRADITION…136 WORKS CONSULTED…………………………………………………………..……141 SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………149 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………151 - ii - ABSTRACT The field of folklore in general, but specifically Africana folklore studies can be enriched by greater analyses of Black female contributions. In this study, I position folk music as the primary interest and chosen location to acknowledge Black women’s participation from beyond the margins. My inquiry reveals folk music as a lens into the myriad ways in which Black women have translated vernacular traditions into a means to deconstruct the master narrative as well as interrogate racist patriarchy. Specifically, this study examines how Nina Simone, Tracy Chapman, and Lauryn Hill have appropriated the folk aesthetic as a vehicle for social activism and cultural autobiography. I examine: 1) how folk music functions as a strategic discursive space for politically conscious creative expression and 2) how folk music functions communally as cultural autobiography/autoethnography and as a tool for community or nation-building. Situated at the forefront of my textual analysis are three women performers, Simone, Chapman, and Hill, whom I regard as most emblematic of a “radical Black folk consciousness.” I extensively read these women’s performative, personal, and lyrical acts using a multi-layered theoretical framework, including but not limited to: Feminism/Womanism, Cultural Autobiography Studies, Black Nationalism, and Marxism. This discussion builds upon and extends the scholarship of autobiography and folklore as tools of subversion as well as recurring themes in African American female rhetorical practices. - iii - CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The Songs of Black (Women) Folk examines the musical genre known as folk, a genre in America most popularly associated with white youth counterculture. However, this study broadens the scope of folk music by discussing the Afro-American oral tradition, cultural experience(s), and political practices. I trace the tradition from its early forms such as hollers and sorrow songs to blues and rap, its latest evolution. In so doing, I delineate the roots of Black folk music as both balm and battle cry during periods of social upheaval, since the music has long provided a living record of African American struggle. In particular, I address how Black female performers have appropriated the folk aesthetic as a means of political expression, ethno-autobiography/documentation, and for community/nation-building projects. I situate my project within current conversations on the American folkloric tradition and oral performance such as jazz, blues, and storytelling. In addition, I integrate previous scholarship on a recurring topic in African American women’s quest for subjectivity and liberation: performance (writing, singing, etc.) as activism. The scholarship on American folk music has marginalized Black folk music and musicians, or discussed it from a masculinist perspective, thus emphasizing only the Black male contribution.1 This study corrects this imbalance by focusing on the African American female contribution within the Black folk music tradition. I conceive of my project, in part, as a response to research questions raised by Sw. Anand Prahlad2 who recognizes the problem of the male bias within Africana folklore studies, and highlights the absent feminist or womanist study of black folklore. The Songs of Black (Women) Folk studies Black women’s musical performance through a lens shaped by the intersection of gender and race. -1- Although Prahlad’s concerns are valid, a few notable feminist examinations of Black women’s folk performance have been undertaken. Daphne Duval Harrison’s Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s and Angela Y. Davis’ Blues Legacies and Black Feminism are examples of innovative scholarship in this area. While Harrison’s study examines the influence of prominent and lesser-known blues women such as Ida Cox and Alberta Hunter, Davis’ work focuses on three iconic blues women, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. Both studies fill in gaps in a folk musical record that privileges the male contribution. In particular, Davis’ study is critical to my understanding Black womanist politics, oral traditions, and community uplift. My study, though similar in objective, extends both these works, as I move beyond the more readily accessible folk blues aesthetic toward a less specialized idea of folk music that comprises various genres of musical expression, including blues, pop, jazz, and rap. This study examines the folk revivalist tradition3 as expressed by three Black female performers, Nina Simone, Tracy Chapman, and Lauryn Hill. Using the criteria proposed by critic bell hooks in “Revolutionary Black Women: Making Ourselves Subject,” I identify these performers’ radical Black female subjectivity. Their music serves as expressions of political activism that resists various forms of oppression (racism, sexism, and classism). Most importantly, they musically engage in what bell hooks terms “critical pedagogy, the sharing of information and knowledge by black women with black women” (1992, 60). Simone, Chapman, and Hill’s social activism builds upon Black women’s legacy of racial uplift: Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. These three performers raise issues concerning Black women’s self- - 2 - actualization, the vindication of Black womanhood, and an invested interest in uplifting the Black community. Sheila Radford-Hill provides a useful definition of community. She states, for black people, community is a ritual presence that is not necessarily home or ‘hood.’ It is, however, being ‘at home.’ In its best sense, the black community embodies history and feeling of connectedness with those who have similar traditions and a specific national, racial, and ethnic identity. Common characteristics of community include similar forms of cultural expression, religious or spiritual traditions, and kinship rituals… When defined in this way, community is a pathway for black personal survival and social transformation (77). Black women’s role in the Black community has been articulated by several writers (e.g., Angela Davis, 1973; Elsie Johnson McDougald; Anna Julia Cooper). In particular, Cooper “identified community building as a source of self-definition” (qtd in Radford- Hill 46). In continuing the legacy of community building as part of Black women’s activism and self-empowerment, Radford-Hill states, “Community building is more important to black women now than to any group of women in history. Black women need the collective fulfillment of traditional black communities, whether we actually live in them or not” (77). She further declares, “Acknowledging that black women need their communities is a necessary prelude to action” (77-8). As politically conscious artists whose music serves as part of the cultural front against oppression, Simone, Chapman, and Hill lift their voices in protest, embodying the womanist tradition of serving as culture bearers for the Black community.4 Simone, considered the High Priestess of Soul, was an eclectic musical talent who during the 1960s took a political stance with original ballads of protest. Her musical heir, Chapman, is a folk revivalist whose dissenting voice was most prominent during the 1980s. In the late 1990s, Lauryn Hill channeled hip hop-fused folk and R&B as a mode - 3 - of female and self-empowerment. These women will serve as locii of the study as their work typifies radical Black female consciousness (the personal) merging into musical performance (the political). Simone, Chapman, and Hill employ folk music as a vehicle for social protest within the context of Black liberation struggle. I read each woman’s performative and lyrical acts as consciously