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African American female music artists
African American feminism
African American women and music
avant-garde black music
black authenticity
black feminism
black feminist biography
black music and Broadway
black women and Broadway
black women and classical music
black women and electric blues
black women and gospel
black women and hip hop
black women and jazz
black women and vaudeville
Broadway
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challenges
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eq_society-politics
hip hop
hip hop feminism
musicking
obstacles
racial uplift through music
sexual politics
women's music festivals
Product details
- ISBN 9780252074264
- Weight: 367g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 16 Mar 2007
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This collection is the first interdisciplinary volume to examine black women’s negotiation of race and gender in African American music. Contributors address black women’s activity in musical arenas that pre- and postdate the emergence of the vaudeville blues singers of the 1920s. Throughout, the authors illustrate black women’s advocacy of themselves as blacks and as women in music. Feminist? Black feminist? The editors take care to stress that each term warrants interrogation: “Black women can and have forged, often, but not always––and not everywhere the same across time––identities that are supple enough to accommodate a sense of female empowerment through ‘musicking’ in tandem with their sensitivities to black racial allegiances.”
Individual essays concern the experiences of black women in classical music and in contemporary blues, the history of black female gospel-inflected voices in the Broadway musical, and "hip-hop feminism" and its complications. Focusing on under-examined contexts, authors introduce readers to the work of a prominent gospel announcer, women’s music festivals (predominantly lesbian), and to women’s involvement in an early avant-garde black music collective. In contradistinction to a compilation of biographies, this volume critically illuminates themes of black authenticity, sexual politics, access, racial uplift through music, and the challenges of writing (black) feminist biography. Black Women and Music is a strong reminder that black women have been and are both social actors and artists contributing to African American thought.
Individual essays concern the experiences of black women in classical music and in contemporary blues, the history of black female gospel-inflected voices in the Broadway musical, and "hip-hop feminism" and its complications. Focusing on under-examined contexts, authors introduce readers to the work of a prominent gospel announcer, women’s music festivals (predominantly lesbian), and to women’s involvement in an early avant-garde black music collective. In contradistinction to a compilation of biographies, this volume critically illuminates themes of black authenticity, sexual politics, access, racial uplift through music, and the challenges of writing (black) feminist biography. Black Women and Music is a strong reminder that black women have been and are both social actors and artists contributing to African American thought.
Eileen M. Hayes is an associate professor of music and the chair of the division of music history, theory, and ethnomusicology at the University of North Texas. Linda F. Williams is an independent scholar and jazz saxophonist.
