Embedded Files
Abdurraqib, H. (2022). A little devil in America: In praise of Black performance (Random House Trade Paperback). Random House.
"'I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.' Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture." [From the Publisher]
Foster, B. B. (2020). I don't like the blues: Race place and the backbeat of black life. University of North Carolina Press.
"In this illuminating work, Foster takes us where not many blues writers and scholars have gone: into the homes, memories, speculative visions, and lifeworlds of Black folks in contemporary Mississippi to hear what they have to say about the blues and all that has come about since their forebears first sang them. In so doing, Foster urges us to think differently about race, place, and community development and models a different way of hearing the sounds of Black life, a method that he calls listening for the backbeat." [From the Publisher]
Gussow, A. (2020). Whose blues?: Facing up to race and the future of the music. University of North Carolina Press.
In Whose blues? humanities professor and blues scholar Adam Gussow explores the intersection of blues and race, looking specifically at debates surrounding the racial provenance of the blues. “Using blues literature and history as a cultural anchor, Gussow defines, interprets, and makes sense of the blues for the new millennium.” [From the Publisher]
Ramsey, G. P. (2004). Race music: black cultures from bebop to hip-hop. University of California Press.
"Guthrie Ramsey’s Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop is a fascinating account of the relationship between music and African American identity [. . . .] [This book] is also concerned with the ways in which African Americans have used music to construct positive and flexible concepts of “race.” [Book Review]
Woods, C. A. (1998). Development arrested: The blues and plantation power in the Mississippi delta. Verso.
"Arguing that [the blues] emerged in response to economic and political restructuring in the Delta during the 20th century, [Clyde Woods] goes on to show how it constitutes a critique of the plantation South, New South modernization, and the transformation of capitalist agriculture during the so-called Green Revolution." -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class
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