"Born in rural Kentucky, Mickey Hess grew up listening to the militant rap of Public Enemy while living in a place where the state song still included the word "darkies." Listening to hip-hop made Hess think about what it meant to be white, while the environment in small-town Kentucky encouraged him to avoid or even mock such self-examination. With America's history of cultural appropriation, we've come to mistrust white people who participate deeply...

"THE MEANING OF SOUL discusses Black resilience and innovation through soul music and soul logic. Emily Lordi analyzes soul music and musicians from the 1960s, the 1970s, and after, bridging the different valences of soul as a way of moving through the world. The book encompasses soul's racial-political meanings while being sensitive to the details of the music and small details that shaped artists' lives and their relationship to soul. Chapter 1...

In 1993, Prince infamously changed his name to a unique, unpronounceable symbol. Yet this was only one of a long string of self-reinventions orchestrated by Prince as he refused to be typecast by the music industry¿́¿s limiting definitions of masculinity and femininity, of straightness and queerness, of authenticity and artifice, or of black music and white music.

""What happens when we look at US country music through a black feminist and queer eye?" Francesca Royster suggests it reveals a group of mostly invisible fans and performers in a "white" musical genre, some of whom are intervening in that space in ways that are creative, risky and inherently "soulful." While loving country music can be an exercise in shaming and rejection for these fans, the music is also a space of creativity, resistance, and power....

Afro-Punk explores race identity within the punk rock scene. The film addresses issues of loneliness, exile, inter-racial dating and Black power. The film follows the lives of four African Americans who have dedicated themselves to the punk rock lifestyle. They find themselves in conflicting situations, living the dual life of a Black person in a mostly White community. Afro-Punk features excerpts of performances by Bad Brains, Tamar Kali, Cipher,...