In an effort to push the literature on music and collective identity to examine how the cognitive dimension of collective identity gets constructed, a study shifts away from the customary focus on lyrics, toward an analysis of the everyday discursive contexts of music scenes, such as rehearsals, informal commentary, and training seminars. By examining such contexts within the black gospel music scene in São Paulo, Brazil, the study discovers that a complex ideology of racial identity, infused with ideas drawn from North American history and the Bible, circulates within the scene.
