Black Atlantic Musics in Rhode Island

Catalog description

When we talk about musics of the African diaspora, we often think first about “roots” – where musics originate. But what happens when we look more closely at the complex “routes” that characterize the history and present of the African diaspora, and the development of Black musical traditions worldwide? Using Paul Gilroy’s framework of “the Black Atlantic” (and at times critiquing it), this seminar-style class will delve into various Rhode Island-based, local manifestations of Afro-Black music-making – from the Nuyorican hip-hop technology nexus to the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira to the melancholic Cabo Verdean morna – as a lens through which to study global processes of sonic racialization, colonial/imperial musical assemblage, and trans-diasporic creativity. In this course, we will open ourselves to aesthetic and intellectual encounter with the sonic traditions of local Black diaspora communities -- and their practitioners.