In November 2017, the announcement of a diverse pool of Grammy award nominees prompted a wave of excitement among music industry professionals, fans, and journalists, who previously lambasted the Grammys’ lack of racial diversity. After... more
In November 2017, the announcement of a diverse pool of Grammy award nominees prompted a wave of excitement among music industry professionals, fans, and journalists, who previously lambasted the Grammys’ lack of racial diversity. After several years of backlash, the Recording Academy made streaming-only releases eligible, implemented an online voting system, and established a nomination review committee for the rap award categories. Subsequently, there was a significant increase of African-American nominees featured in the mainstream award categories. While some critics have commended the Recording Academy for addressing their diversity issues, I argue that these policy changes provide a false sense of racial reform, covertly protect white elites’ socioeconomic interests, and are susceptible to reversal. Utilizing critical race theory (CRT) scholarship, I examine the discourse and implications surrounding each policy’s implementation to unearth the Recording Academy’s underlying intentions for instituting the changes. My findings reveal that the Recording Academy deploys powerful yet subversive colorblind ideologies that obscure racial inequalities and the racially negligent nature of the policy changes. In sum, I recommend that the Recording Academy implement large-scale race-conscious measures to confront their diversity issues effectively and meaningfully.
DJ Screw, born Robert Earl Davis, died too young to see the music that he invented (and to which he gave his name) become the globally celebrated musical genre it is today. Chopped and screwed music, which began as a local Houston hip-hop... more
DJ Screw, born Robert Earl Davis, died too young to see the music that he invented (and to which he gave his name) become the globally celebrated musical genre it is today. Chopped and screwed music, which began as a local Houston hip-hop subculture, distributed physically via mixtapes at parties and local brick-and-mortar retail establishments, has now become a widely recognized genre embraced and emulated by pop stars and promoted by major record labels. While DJ Screw and his creative partners in Houston’s Screwed Up Click are now far more widely known than they were before his death at the turn of the century, their legacy has a monodimensional and even pejorative aspect to it — one in which the music has become a sonic marker of drug abuse, and a symbol of the degradation and decadence of the “Dirty South.” In this article, we aim to broaden Screw’s legacy, and to valorize the politically resistant aspects of chopped and screwed music, by illuminating the articulation between hip-hop as a political art form and the rise of the “slow media” as a global counterhegemonic movement.
Throughout its history, electroacoustic music has viewed itself as distinct from what are perceived as popular musical forms. This is problematic because a parallel experimental musical universe has existed within jazz and other... more
Throughout its history, electroacoustic music has viewed itself as distinct from what are perceived as popular musical forms. This is problematic because a parallel experimental musical universe has existed within jazz and other African-American musical traditions. This presentation explores collaborations between electroacoustic and jazz musicians during the 1960s and early 1970s, through the lens of the personal experiences of members of Herbie Hancock's "Mwandishi" band, and of electroacoustic musicians including Richard Teitelbaum and Gordon Mumma. The discussion interrelates racial and musical segregation, and argues for the inclusion of jazz and "creative music" forms within the domain of electroacoustic music.
This paper examines the existence of Jazz as black-American music, from the perspective of current-day black artists. It is the goal of this ethnomusicological study, which will survey not only the particulars, and narratives, but also... more
This paper examines the existence of Jazz as black-American music, from the perspective of current-day black artists. It is the goal of this ethnomusicological study, which will survey not only the particulars, and narratives, but also the interpretives of the matter, to expose various perspectives on jazz and black-American music within current-day society, in hopes of shedding more light on an ongoing conversation regarding race relations.
