A01=Derrais Carter
Author_Derrais Carter
Black art
Black artists
Category=AVC
Category=AVLP
Category=AVP
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
erotic
expressive
fantastical
fantasy
love affair
lyrical
political
Product details
- ISBN 9781501379062
- Dimensions: 121 x 165mm
- Publication Date: 07 May 2026
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Marvin Gaye sang like he lived in bed. He could croon, deliver a political commentary, and sing to you like you were the only other soul on this earth. And in 1976 he gave us a taste of his erotic imagination with I Want You. An album made in honor of his ongoing love affair with Janis (Jan) Hunter, Gaye delivered excess and restraint to sound his desire. I Want You is an album that stands apart from Gaye’s earlier collaborations with Diana Ross, Tammi Terrell, Mary Wells, and Kim Weston. Though not technically a duet, Gaye forges another kind of collaboration with Jan, the result of which is an album that provides an intimate portrait of an artist in love and lust.
Using interviews, visual art, poetry, criticism, and gossip, this book explores ecstasy, funk, sensation, and a host of other delicious and fleshy concerns that animate I Want You. It does not attempt a strict historicization of the album as that would do it a disservice. Instead, this book seeks fidelity to the album by centering Gaye’s fantasies, his engagement with Ernie Barnes’ painting Sugar Shack, and sonic expression of desire for Jan.
Derrais Carter is an Assistant Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona, USA. He is the co-editor of The Iconic Obama (2012) and the author of Obscene Material: Erasing Black Girlhood in the Moens Scandal (forthcoming). He is a Fulbright Scholar, black cultural studies scholar, creative writer, and cognac sipper who centers black people in his art.
