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2. Before Elvis: The prehistory of rock 'n' roll
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Birnbaum,Larry, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Whole
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2013
- Published:
- Lanham: Scarecrow Press
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Notes:
- Surveys the origins of rock 'n' roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Dispelling common misconceptions, this book examines rock's origins in hokum songs and big-band boogies as well as Delta blues, detailing the embrace by white artists of African-American styles long before rock 'n' roll appeared. This study ranges far and wide, highlighting not only the contributions of obscure but key precursors like Hardrock Gunter and Sam Theard but also the influence of celebrity performers like Gene Autry and Ella Fitzgerald. Too often, rock historians treat the genesis of rock 'n' roll as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop music that immediately preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music until then played only by and for black audiences. Here, Birnbaum argues a more complicated history of rock's evolution from a heady mix of ragtime, boogie-woogie, swing, country music, mainstream pop, and R&B—a melange of genres that influenced one another along the way, from the absorption of blues and boogies into jazz and pop to the integration of country and Caribbean music into R&B.
3. Modernity, agency, and sexuality in the pagode baiano
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Lima,Ari, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 2011-01-01
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Notes:
- Examines a variation of samba called pagode baiano in several peripheral neighborhoods of the city of Salvador. Dance parties organized around this genre provide the context for the affirmation of a racial identity discourse as well as the reterritorialization of 'easy women', 'dishonest and lazy people', jobless people, homosexuals, and blacks. Pagode reintegrates aspects of traditional African manifestations found in Brazil, such as dance, call-and-response song, and the emphasis on polyrhythm. It embraces a sub-altern gender (feminine) and sexuality (homosexual) and undermines the hegemony of the macho. It exists as a musical experience whose feelings are particular and shared amongst certain subjects. Musicians and the public share a language and a way of speaking about themselves and others that reveal an emergent, imperfect citizenship.
4. My song: A memoir
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Belafonte,Harry, (Author) and Shnayerson,Michael, (Collab.)
- Format:
- Book, Whole
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2011
- Published:
- New York: Alfred A. Knopf
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Notes:
- A personal account of an era of enormous cultural and political change, which reveals Harry Belafonte as not only one of America's greatest entertainers, but also one of our most profoundly influential activists. Belafonte spent his childhood in both Harlem and Jamaica, where the toughness of the city and the resilient spirit of the Caribbean lifestyle instilled in him a tenacity to face the hurdles of life head-on and channel his anger into positive, life-affirming actions. He returned to New York City after serving in the Navy in World War II, and found his calling in the theater, before transitioning into a career as a singer and Hollywood leading man. During the 1960s civil rights movement, Belafonte became close friends with Martin Luther King, Jr., and used his celebrity as a platform for his activism in civil rights and countless other political and social causes. This book tells the inspiring story of an original and powerful entertainer who has always engaged fiercely with the issues of his day.
5. The color of sound: Race, religion, and music in Brazil
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Burdick,John, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Whole
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2013
- Published:
- New York: New York University
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Notes:
- Throughout Brazil, Afro-Brazilians face widespread racial prejudice. Many turn to religion, with Afro-Brazilians disproportionately represented among Protestants, the fastest-growing religious group in the country. Officially, Brazilian Protestants do not involve themselves in racial politics. Behind the scenes, however, the community is deeply involved in the formation of different kinds of blackness—and its engagement in racial politics is rooted in the major new cultural movement of black music. In this account, the complex ideas about race, racism, and racial identity that have grown up among Afro-Brazilians in the black music scene are explored. The author immersed himself for nearly a year in the vibrant worlds of black gospel, gospel rap, and gospel samba in order to better understand racial identity and the social effects of music. Delving into the everyday music-making practices of these scenes, it is shows how the creative process itself shapes how Afro-Brazilian artists experience and understand their racial identities. The results challenge much of what some people thought they knew about Brazil's Protestants, provoking one to think in new ways about their role in their country's struggle to combat racism.
6. The natural mystics: Marley, Tosh, and Wailer
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Grant,Colin, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Whole
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2011
- Published:
- New York: W.W. Norton
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Notes:
- The definitive group biography of the Wailers—Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Livingston—chronicling their rise to fame and power and offering a portrait of a seminal group during a period of exuberant cultural evolution. Over one dramatic decade, a trio of Trenchtown R&B crooners swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers—one of the most influential groups in popular music. A history of the band is presented from their upbringing in the brutal slums of Kingston to their first recordings and then international superstardom. It is argued that these reggae stars offered three models for black men in the second half of the 20th century: accommodate and succeed (Marley), fight and die (Tosh), or retreat and live (Livingston). The author meets with Rastafarian elders, Obeah men, and other folk authorities as he attempts to unravel the mysteries of Jamaica's famously impenetrable culture and to offer a sophisticated understanding of Jamaican politics, heritage, race, and religion.
7. The routes and roots of danzón: A critique of the history of a genre
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Malcomson,Hettie, (Author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- May; May, 2011
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Popular music
- Journal Title Details:
- 30(2) : 263-278
- Notes:
- Examines the history of a genre that spans several continents and several centuries. Material from Mexico, Cuba, France, and Great Britain are brought together to create anew, expand upon, and critique the standard histories of danzón narrated by Mexico's danzón experts and others. In these standard histories, origins and nationality are key to the constitution of genres that are racialized and moralized for political ends. Danzón, its antecedents, and successors are treated as generic equivalents despite being quite different. From the danzón on, these genres are positioned as being the products of individual, male originators and their nations. Africa is treated as a conceptual nation, and Africanness as something extra that racializes hegemonic European music-dance forms. Political leanings and strategies determine whether these music-dance forms are interpreted, adopted, or co-opted as being black or white.
8. Tradition as adventure: Black music, new Afro-descendant subjects, and pluralization of modernity in Salvador da Bahia
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Pinho,Osmundo de Araújo, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2011
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Collected Work: Brazilian popular music and citizenship.Pages: 250-266.(AN: 2011-04563).
- Notes:
- Examines aspects related to the plural constitution of Afro-descendants informed by black discursiveness in Salvador, Bahia. This discursiveness is strongly marked by the role of black music and by the history of Afro-descendant Carnaval. This essay shows that these subjects are a product of modernization and operate in it, while giving it a specific configuration. Social agents as reflexive audience play a decisive role in the review and criticism of such modernity, pluralizing it and pushing the boundaries of democracy and of representation politics, in their demand for recognition and changes. Music, as discursive production and as sociability experience, plays a key part in this process.
9. Witnessing forced internal displacement in Colombia through vallenato music
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Rodríguez Quevedo,Diana, (Author)
- Format:
- Book, Section
- Publication Date:
- 01/01; 2013
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Collected Work: Song and social change in Latin America.Pages: 123-150.(AN: 2013-02135).
- Notes:
- In Colombia, armed conflict, exacerbated by the war on drugs and the effects of neoliberal economic policies, has forced Afro-Colombian communities in the Chocó region off their land. The author studies the lyrics of a collection of vallenato songs that affirm the identity of the displaced of Chocó and help create solidarity and consciousness about their struggle. She explains the ideological roots of the armed conflict between the state military, the guerilla groups, and the paramilitary units of Colombia. She also describes the displacement she believes is caused by specific economic development projects resulting from 21st-century free-trade agreements between North America and Colombia. She analyzes how the villanato songs bring visibility to an otherwise invisible group of displaced peoples.
10. “Tropical mix”: Afro-Latino space and Notch’s reggaetón
- Collection:
- Black Caribbean Literature (BCL)
- Contributers:
- Rivera,Petra R., (Author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- May; May, 2011
- Location:
- African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Journal Title:
- Popular music and society
- Journal Title Details:
- 34(2) : 221-235
- Notes:
- Examines how Connecticut-born reggaetón artist Notch incorporates oratorical, visual, and musical cues in his music video, Qué te pica (What's itching you?), to establish connections between Latino and Caribbean communities in the U.S. These communities have typically been disavowed by hegemonic racial categories that distinguish between them. While Notch’s music disrupts these particular racial hierarchies, he also maintains hetero-normative patriarchal relations in his video. An analytic, Afro-Latino space is proposed to account for the ways that reggaetón as a musical genre, and Notch more specifically, unsettle certain distinctions between blackness and Latinidad, while simultaneously relying on stereotypes of black hypermasculinity.