Black Atlantic Mixtape: An Introduction

We begin with some writings on black music--a grouping that we might call a kind of "Black Atlantic Mixtape"--tailored to the purposes of our introductory class.  A mixtape suggests juxtaposition, overlap, and resonance, and in some cases, dissonance. The theme(s) or moods that link these various writings will be the subject of our discussion.

1. W.E.B. Du Bois, "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" and "Sorrow Songs" (The Souls of Black Folk)
2. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic (chapters 1 &3)
3. Nathaniel Mackey, "Sound and Sentiment, Sound and Symbol"
4. Michael Veal, "Starship Africa"

This post will focus on Du Bois's Souls and Gilroy's "Jewels Brought from Bondage: Black Music and the Politics of Authenticity." It is fitting to begin with Du Bois's famous reflection on double consciousness in "Of Our Spiritual Strivings:"

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

If black expressive culture does not, in Du Bois's mind, facilitate transcendence of this condition, it importantly allows for its transmission. In black spirituals Du Bois locates the "articulate message of the slave to the world." His juxtaposition of scores with written text, a practice that frames each chapter of Souls, establishes a relationship between black music and writing. Du Bois asserts this relationship as much through provocative suggestion as through explicit discussion of music. What does it mean to consider music as our point of entry to the questions of modernity and double consciousness raised in the Souls of Black Folk?

This idea is taken up in Gilroy's The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness. Invoking Du Bois, Gilroy claims that the special power of black expressive forms derives from their "doubleness; their unsteady location simultaneously inside and outsiTde the conventions, assumptions, and aesthetic rules which distinguish and periodise modernity"(73). The question of black music's modernity is taken up next week in Wehileye's Phonographies: Grooves in Afro-Sonic Modernity. Here, Gilroy offers a critique of the ways that debates over modernity have centered the text and textuality as "mode of communicative practice which provides a model for all forms of cognitive exchange and social interaction." He offers that "the history and practice of black music point to other possibilities and generate other plausible models."(77)

To account for these alternative models is necessary to consider the work of range of figures "who have tried to use music as an aesthetic, political, or philosophical marker in the production of what might loosely be called their critical social theories" (79) Gilroy approaches this task with incredible range throughout this chapter: Consider the following examples:

The Fisk Jubilee Singers and the politics of authenticity. 

For Du Bois, Gilroy notes, the Fisk singers became a symbol for the reconciliation of the aims of the Talented Tenth with those of the black poor" (90). In Souls, slave music (even the more "polished" versions performed by Fisk) is privileged as "signifier of black authenticity." To provide contrast, Gilroy also cites Zora Neale Hurston's infamous charge that Jubilee Singers's repertoire was so full of "musicians tricks that Negro congregations are highly entertained when they hear their old songs so changed." Negro spirituals with their "face lifted, so to speak."

Gilroy's interest lies not in the correctness of Hurston's charge rather "her strongly felt need to draw a line around what is and isn't authentically, genuinely black and to use music as the medium which makes these distinctions credible"(92). Examining what is at stake in this highly fraught question of authenticity--as accessed through black music--will be a key consideration of this class.

Below is an early recording of Swing Low Sweet Chariot, as performed by the Fisk Jubilee Singers:

Fisk Jubilee Singers, "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" (1909)

Jimi Hendrix, Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Sounds

Gilroy names Jimi Hendrix as another key figure, describing him as an iconic performer whose overt sexuality and "neo-minstel buffoonery" was perceived as authentic blackness to white rock audiences abroad (A characterization which I find less than generous.) Still,  Gilroy's discussion of Hendrix's transatlantic journey and navigation of London race and class politics is an instructive example of the creative possibilities opened up by transnational, diasporic cultural innovation. (94) As with the Fisk Jubilee singers, Hendrix's travels (later encapsulated in his "nomadic ideology of the gyspy") are key to understanding the global circulations (and transformations) of black expressive culture.

Hendrix, "Hey Joe" (1967)

Other examples (to be taken up in discussion) include the (problematic) gender politics of 2 Live Crew and their relationship to questions of authenticity: "2 Live Crew "Banned in the USA" Hip hop in general is a point of interest for Gilroy--not only because of its global circulations but the Caribbean/Latino influences that constitute its origins.

The new version of the Impression's hit I'm So Proud (renamed "Proud of Mandela" performed by Macka B), which topped the British reggae charts in 1990:

Mandela's release from prison, Gilroy writes, "projected an unchallenged, patriarchal voice, a voice rooted in the most intense political conflict between blacks and whites on this planet, the final frontier of white supremacy on the African continent, out across the really systems of the black Atlantic" (96) Along with Mandela's "redemptive authenticity" is Mandela's own compelling invocation of black American music in his citation of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" "When we were in prison, we appreciated and obviously listened to the sounds of Detroit." In this moment, Gilroy writes, "the global dimensions of diaspora dialogue were momentarily visible and, as his casual words lit up the black Atlantic landscape like a flash of lightening on a summer night, the value of music as the principal symbol of racial authenticity was simultaneously confirmed and placed in question." (96)

Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On?," Live in Amsterdam

How do our other readings intersect, extend, or diverge from the concerns laid out above? How might  a consideration of form (which is discussed in all of our readings) enrich our discussion?