Black Diasporas in Popular Music
Fall 2015
AfAm 245
Professor Weheliye
T/Th 12:30-1:50pm
TA: Tyrone Palmer & Theo Foster
Black Diasporas in Popular Music
This course provides an introduction to the history of the global travels of black popular music since the1960s, focusing on sound cultures from the US, Caribbean, Africa and Western Europe. We will begin by studying Reggae, Disco, and Hip-Hop to discuss how they have shaped the African diaspora. We will then survey these genres as well as the histories of R&B, Afrobeats, House and Techno and some of their many offshoots (Jungle, Reggaetón, Afropop, for instance) have developed over the last 40 years to ask how popular music functions as one of the main channels of communication among the cultures of the African diaspora. Overall, this course investigates the aesthetic, political, cultural, and economic dimensions of black popular music, paying particular attention to questions of gender, sexuality, class, nation, language, and technology.
Requirements
*Regular attendance
*Essay
*Final multimedia group project and presentation
*Weekly blog posts/responses
*In-class participation
*Creating or editing three Wikipedia entries related to the course topic
Grading
Essay, Multimedia Project/Presentation, Blog Posts, and Wikipedia Entries 70%
Participation and Attendance 30%
Rules
*Laptops may only be used for class related activities; otherwise they will be taken away.
*Cell phones and other mobile devices should be turned off during class time
*You are required to bring reading materials to class, either in hard copy or electronic form.
*Please familiarize yourself with the “Avoiding Plagiarism” document posted on the Lore Website site.
*Attendance is mandatory. Missing more than one class will result in a lower grade.
*In-class/online behavior should be based on mutual respect. I encourage and appreciate active, informed, and critical interchanges during our discussions, but these should be conducted in a manner that is considerate of others. This means that we should not use discriminatory and non-inclusive language whenever possible, even if we encounter this language in some of the materials on the syllabus. If you are unsure about using any particular terms, you should ask about them. _
Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting accommodations related to a disability or other condition is required to register with Services for Students with Disabilities (ssd@northwestern.edu; 847-467-5530) and provide professors with an accommodation notification from SSD, preferably within the first two weeks of class. For more information: http://www.northwestern.edu/disability. All information will remain confidential. I can best accommodate students if they let me or the TA know about their specific needs related to learning and fulfilling the requirements of the course.
Quarter Schedule
Please note: the most up-to-date version of the quarter schedule will always be available online
Tuesday 9/22 Course Introduction
Thursday 9/24 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic Chapters 1and 3
Tuesday 9/29 Tistsi Jaji, “Stereomodernism: Amplifying the Black Atlantic” and Rinaldo Walcott, “’Keep on Movin’: Rap, Black Atlantic Identities and the Problem of Nation.”
Thursday 10/1 Julian Henriques, “Sonic Diaspora, Vibrations and Rhythm” and Michael Veal, “Starship Africa: The Acoustics of Diaspora and of the Postcolony.”
Tuesday 10/6 Julian Henriques and Beatrice Ferrara, “The Sounding of the Notting Hill Carnival: Music as Space, Place and Territory;” Lyndon Phillip, Reading “Caribana 1997: Black Youth, Puff Daddy, Style, and Diaspora;” and Keith Nurse, “Globalization and Trinidad Carnival: Diaspora, Hybridity and Identity in Global Culture.”
Thursday 10/8 Francesca Royster, “’Feeling Like a Woman, Looking Like a Man, Sounding Like a No-No’: Grace Jones and the Performance of ‘Strangé’ in the Post- Soul Moment” and Nadia Ellis, “Out and Bad: Toward a Queer Performance Hermeneutics in Jamaican Dancehall.”
Film: Queens of Disco - Grace Jones
Tuesday 10/13 Hilary Beckles and Heather D. Russell, Introduction: Baadest-Bajan, Wickedest World-Gurl;’” Heather D. Russell, “Rihanna: Diaspora Citizen, Bajan Daughter, Global Superstar;” Mimi Sheller, “Erotic Agency and a Queer Caribbean Freedom.”
Thursday 10/15 Alisa Bierria, “’Where Them Bloggers at?’: Reflections on Rihanna, Accountability, and Survivor Subjectivity;” Nicole R. Fleetwood, “The Case of Rihanna: Erotic Violence and Black Female Desire” and Aaron Kamugisha, “Rihanna and Bajan Respectability.”
Tuesday 10/20 Fatima El-Tayeb “‘If You Can’t Pronounce My Name, You Can Just Call Me Pride’: Afro-German Activism, Gender and Hip Hop” and Alexander Weheliye, “My Volk to Come: Specters of Peoplehood in recent Diaspora Discourse and Afro-German Popular Music.”
Thursday 10/22 Mireille Miller-Young, “Hip-Hop Honeys and Da Hustlaz Black Sexualities in the New Hip-Hop Pornography;” Uri McMillan, “Nicki-aesthetics: The Camp Performance of Nicki Minaj” and Andreana Clay, “Queer Women of Color and Hip-Hop Masculinity.”
Essay due at 5pm via Canvas Website
Tuesday 10/27 Nabeel Zuberi, “Black Whole Styles: Sounds, Technology, and Diaspora Aesthetics” and Michael Veal, “Electronica, Remix Culture, and Jamaica as a Source of Transformative Strategies in Global Popular Music.”
Films: Reggae Britannia and Jungle Fever
Thursday 10/29 Robert Strachan, “Britfunk: Black British Popular Music, Identity and the Recording Industry in the Early 1980s” and Lisa Amanda Palmer, “‘Men Cry Too’: Black Masculinities and the Feminisation of Lovers Rock in the UK.”
Film: Young Soul Rebels (Canvas)
Tuesday 11/3 Mark V. Campbell, “Other/ed Kinds of Blackness: An Afrodiasporic Versioning of Black Canada;” Safy-Hallan Farah, Poetic Justice: Drake and East African Girls; Hannah Giorgis, The Weeknd's East African Roots
Thursday 11/5 Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Oye Como Va! Hybridity and Identity in
Latino Popular Music (Chapters 4 and 5) and Juan Flores, “Puerto Rocks: Rap, Roots, and Amnesia.”
Film: La Clave
Tuesday 11/10 Wayne Marshall, “Dem Bow, Dembow, Dembo: Translation and Transnation in Reggaetón” and Raquel Z. Rivera, Wayne Marshall, and Deborah Pacini Hernandez, “Introduction: Reggaetón’s Socio-Sonic Circuitry.”
Thursday 11/12 Louis Chude-Sokei, “When Echoes Return: Roots, Diaspora and Possible Africas” and Louise Meintjes, “The Recording Studio as Fetish.”
Tuesday 11/17 Jesse Weaver Shipley, Living the Hiplife: Celebrity and Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Popular Music (Chapters 7 and 8)
Film: Living the Hiplife (Canvas)
Thursday 11/19 Garth Sheridan, “Fruity Batidas: The Technologies and Aesthetics of Kuduro;” Jayna Brown, “Buzz and Rumble Global Pop Music and Utopian Impulse” and Hershini Young, “’Sound of Kuduro knocking at my door’: Kuduro Dance and the Poetics of Debility.”
Tuesday 11/24 Boima Tucker, At the Crossroads of BET, Afrobeats, and #BlackLivesMatter; Dan Hancox, It's Called Afrobeats and It's Taking Over London; Andy Beta, Where It Began: Western Dance Music’s Ongoing Dialogue with Africa; David Drake, Pop Music's Nigerian Future
Thursday 11/26 NO CLASS Thanksgiving
Tuesday 12/1 Final Presentations
Thursday 12/3 Final Presentations