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    Start Over Format Dissertation/Thesis Subject Term reggae

    1. "Reggae got Blues": The blues aesthetic in African American literature as a lens for the reggae aesthetic in Anglophone Caribbean literature

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    Collection:
    Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
    Contributers:
    Washington,Lynn (Author)
    Format:
    Dissertation/Thesis
    Publication Date:
    2013
    Published:
    Maryland: Morgan State University
    Location:
    African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    Journal Title:
    ProQuest Dissertations and Theses
    Notes:
    193 p., Kwame Dawes coined the term "reggae aesthetic" to explain the paradigm shift in 1960s-70s Caribbean literature that also dovetailed the rise of reggae music in Jamaica. By exploring the impact of popular music on the social developments in late 1960s and early 1970s Jamaica, Dawes offered a new method of Caribbean literary analysis reminiscent of the extant blues tradition in African American literature--similar to the way that reggae music borrows from the blues--and in so doing, highlighted the artistic and cultural influences that link people of color across the "Black Atlantic." This dissertation builds on Dawes's theory by exploring the history and function of music as an aesthetic form and narrative trope in literature of the Black Atlantic. Blues and reggae in contemporary fiction manifest the oral tradition in African storytelling.

    2. You can’t go to Zion with a carnal mind: Slackness and culture in the music of King Yellowman

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    Collection:
    Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
    Contributers:
    Hagerman,Brent, (Author)
    Format:
    Dissertation/Thesis
    Publication Date:
    01/01; 2011
    Location:
    African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    Notes:
    Jamaican deejay Yellowman is best known for 'slackness': lyrics centered on masculine heterosexual potency, sexist objectification of women, and graphic sexual narratives. Yet a deeper look at Yellowman's life and recorded output suggests that when his slackness is read in the context of Afro-Jamaican culture, reggae history, and his Rastafarian faith, a more complex interpretation of his slackness is needed. The study draws on Carolyn Cooper's (2001) theory that slackness is a 'metaphorical revolt against law and order, an undermining of consensual standards of decency' (p. 141). Whereas the term 'culture' is used in reggae to depict music that is Afrocentric, Rasta-inspired, and socially conscious, and is normally seen as the antithesis of slackness, it is suggested that for Yellowman, the slack/culture dichotomy is eroded when slackness becomes part of the religious repertoire of resistance against mainstream Jamaican society. The dissertation presents: a) an overview of theory and methodology b) an ethnographic case study based on Yellowman's life and career, and c) four analytical chapters that offer itineraries to theorize slackness in Yellowman's music. First, it is argued that through slackness Yellowman subverted embedded Jamaican cultural notions of sexuality, gender, race, nationality, and beauty by promoting the dundus (black albino) as sexually appealing, hyper-masculine, and part of the imagined black nation. Second, it is demonstrated how Yellowman's sexual lyrics are an example of Obika Gray's (2004) thesis that slackness was a conscious political project employed by the Jamaican poor to contest the normative values of dominant society. The pitting of Yellowman and slackness in reggae journalism against Bob Marley and culture is contested. Third, it is refuted that Yellowman employs slackness for the purpose of moral regulation based on conservative Afro-Jamaican sexual mores and his understanding of Rastafarian morality. Finally, Yellowman's perforating of Christian dualistic ideas of carnal/spiritual is situated in the Rastafarian Babylon/Zion binary, demonstrating how Afro-Caribbean religion has redefined Christian dualism using an Afrocentric body-positive ideology.