Sam Floyd, Melanie Zeck, and Guthrie Ramsey
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780195307245
- eISBN:
- 9780190651305
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195307245.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The Transformation of Black Music situates black musics within the broader cultural, political, social, and historical frameworks of the last millennium. It focuses on the dynamic musical practices ...
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The Transformation of Black Music situates black musics within the broader cultural, political, social, and historical frameworks of the last millennium. It focuses on the dynamic musical practices that have emerged, morphed, and influenced each other in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora. The authors weave significant findings on black music with their own ethnographic and musical accounts in order to craft a narrative that (1) reflects the musical phenomena generated, in part, by forced migration and (2) addresses the longitudinal implications of these phenomena for musicological and cultural discourse. The Transformation of Black Music employs the critical lens of “Call/Response,” which was coined by Samuel A. Floyd Jr. to explain the dissemination of African musics and the return of Diasporic musics to Africa over a wide swath of time. Consequently, black musics are first viewed and interpreted against the backdrop of the Diaspora’s formation and then considered as integral components of expressive gestures and practices made by people of the Diaspora, especially since the nineteenth century. The book examines a full spectrum of black musics and covers topics, such as classical musicians of African descent, previously marginalized in mainstream musico-historical accounts. Moreover, the book presents information gathered from disparate sources that, when synthesized, highlights the interrelationship of musical practices formerly associated with specific eras and regions. By chronicling historical trajectories of black musical practices, The Transformation of Black Music showcases the value of black musics and the relevance of black music research to all musical endeavors.Less
The Transformation of Black Music situates black musics within the broader cultural, political, social, and historical frameworks of the last millennium. It focuses on the dynamic musical practices that have emerged, morphed, and influenced each other in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora. The authors weave significant findings on black music with their own ethnographic and musical accounts in order to craft a narrative that (1) reflects the musical phenomena generated, in part, by forced migration and (2) addresses the longitudinal implications of these phenomena for musicological and cultural discourse. The Transformation of Black Music employs the critical lens of “Call/Response,” which was coined by Samuel A. Floyd Jr. to explain the dissemination of African musics and the return of Diasporic musics to Africa over a wide swath of time. Consequently, black musics are first viewed and interpreted against the backdrop of the Diaspora’s formation and then considered as integral components of expressive gestures and practices made by people of the Diaspora, especially since the nineteenth century. The book examines a full spectrum of black musics and covers topics, such as classical musicians of African descent, previously marginalized in mainstream musico-historical accounts. Moreover, the book presents information gathered from disparate sources that, when synthesized, highlights the interrelationship of musical practices formerly associated with specific eras and regions. By chronicling historical trajectories of black musical practices, The Transformation of Black Music showcases the value of black musics and the relevance of black music research to all musical endeavors.
