Name: Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound
Brand: Daphne A Brooks

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

9780674052819

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "9780674052819"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

Colour

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format Books US

Hardback

Format detail

Limited edition

Release date

2021-02-23

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Ingram

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

1 / Extended format: No / Hardback / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Daphne A Brooks

Genre US

Music

Label US

Belknap Press

An award-winning Black feminist music critic takes us on an epic journey through radical sound from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé.

Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of Black women on stage and in the recording studio. How is it possible, she asks, that iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry?

Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures―a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women concerned with the work of their musical peers. Zora Neale Hurston appears as a sound archivist and a performer, Lorraine Hansberry as a queer Black feminist critic of modern culture, and Pauline Hopkins as America’s first Black female cultural commentator. Brooks tackles the complicated racial politics of blues music recording, song collecting, and rock and roll criticism. She makes lyrical forays into the blues pioneers Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith, as well as fans who became critics, like the record-label entrepreneur and writer Rosetta Reitz. In the twenty-first century, pop superstar Janelle Monae’s liner notes are recognized for their innovations, while celebrated singers Cécile McLorin Salvant, Rhiannon Giddens, and Valerie June take their place as cultural historians.

With an innovative perspective on the story of Black women in popular music―and who should rightly tell it―Liner Notes for the Revolution pioneers a long overdue recognition and celebration of Black women musicians as radical intellectuals.

Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound

Books US